December 2022 Reading Round-Up
The best and worst of my reading month
I had a slower start to my reading month thanks to the rabbit hole that was finals, but picked up the pace once they were over. Over the course of the month, I read 12 books on opposite ends of the spectrum. I read a few incredible books, a few entertaining books, a few insightful books, and a few complete duds. I think that the really good ones made up for my disappointment and inspired one of my 2023 reading goals: to read more high quality books by getting through the fiction winners of the Pulitzer Prize. I’m already having success with the goal - you’ll see that the 1992 winner was my favorite book of the month.
As a reminder, all of the books written about below are available on my December 2022 Reading Round-Up Bookshop page, or you can click on the title of the book itself to be routed to the shop. All of the books I’ve ever recommended, sorted by post, are also available on the general shop page. And, if you buy through this link, you can purchase a gift card through Bookshop.org for the readers in your life.
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12. Kaleidoscope - Cecily Wong
Fiction, 320 pages
In deciding to give this book a 5/10 I had to stop and assess what made this book the worst book I read in 2022. It’s one thing for a book to have bad dialogue, to be boring, cheesy, unbelievable, or not particularly unique. This book seemed to have all of that and more, including scenes that were so random and out of place that they made the entire construction of the book unbelievable and shoddy. The first chapter of the book recounts the night after Morgan takes an abortion pill and the way that her sister Riley cares for her. This scene takes place two years before the central plot of the book and has absolutely no relation to what comes next - indeed no aspect of it will ever even be mentioned again - that it made me wonder who could have possibly edited the book and thought it made sense. Then, after Morgan dies suddenly, James (Morgan’s boyfriend) and Riley suddenly become expert counterfeit bag schemers with no consequences, raising an absurd amount of money to fund their grief-fueled world travels. Why this device was used to get the two to Asia is probably one of the most random options that could have been chosen, absent the two of them becoming hitmen for hire. It’s a sad state of affairs when my favorite part of the book was when Riley goes into the basement of the Barnard quad dorms to get a snack from the vending machines (Cecily Wong is a Barnard alum), and I felt like I could relate because yes, those vending machines do exist. The plot drags then meanders, and I struggled to get to the end. But I did, because I have a bad habit of not being able to give up on a book just in case it redeems itself at the very end. I can confidently say that Kaleidoscope did not.
Rating: 5/10
11. We Wish You Luck - Caroline Zancan
Fiction, 307 pages
We Wish You Luck follows the dealings and drama of a class of low-residency MFA students over the course of their sporadic campus stays at a remote New England university. The narration in We Wish You Luck is done in a plural first-person voice, allowing the reader to assume that the story is being told from the collective mouths of the group. The group spends a lot of time building tension by focusing on a few key students and professors from the program. I assume the goal when choosing this narration style was to imbue the story with a sense of importance without needing to spend time on more characters than necessary, but instead it made the plot feel impersonal and dehumanizing. Further, the central drama of the book, the conflict between a famous writing teacher and one of the students, was given too little time to make the seismic consequences alluded to for the first half of the book feel realistic or even very important. The book isn’t long enough to feel tedious, but the serious tone and constant references to a massive flashpoint event did not match the story that was actually written, making the whole book feel disappointing without packing a punch.
Rating: 5.5/10
10. Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions - Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi
Fiction/Short Stories, 235 pages
Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions is advertised as a “novel in interlocking stories” about a group of Nigerian women and their ancestors. I was excited by the purported premise, which reminded me of the way Yaa Gyasi connected her chapters in Homegoing by jumping through time and family history using interconnected stories. I thought there was a lot of promise after the first chapter, which was a beautifully written tale about a woman in a Nigerian village in the early 1900s who left her husband after discovering that she could not get pregnant. After her business takes off and she becomes an unlikely village elder, she uses her prestige to act as the mother for a baby birthed by a different woman. Although the next story follows the descendant of the child, the rest of the stories do not deviate too far from the already introduced characters, disappointingly eliminating the possibility of a wide-ranging novel. Further, while some stories in this collection were well-written, others had cringey or unrealistic dialogue that I struggled to get through. The writing tainted the rest of the stories, even the first few good ones, and made the collection feel amateurish.
Rating: 6/10
9. Son of Elsewhere - Elamin Abdelmahmoud
Memoir, 288 Pages
Elamin Abdelmahmoud is a Sudanese Canadian writer for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and other pop-culture sites. Son of Elsewhere is his impressive memoir about his immigration journey from Sudan to a small homogenous town in Canada. Political violence and upheaval forced his family to leave for a distant, largely white city where Abdelmahmoud was desperate to fit in. The combination of newly accessible internet and a college experience where he was finally able to meet other Canadians who looked like him prompted Abdelmahmoud to consider the evolution of his identity in relation to the different populations he was raised amongst. Abdelmahmoud is an entertaining writer, pulling the reader in from the first chapter with wit and humor. I enjoyed listening to this book because Abdelmahmoud reads it himself, which made the story feel even more personal.
Rating: 8/10
8. Fight Night - Miriam Toews
Fiction, 251 pages
Fight Night is a beautiful story about the relationship between a child, Swiv, and her grandmother. Swiv is presumably around 10 years old. She is extremely confident and curious; eager to understand the world around her and the behavior of the ones she is closest to. As the novel opens, Swiv is writing a letter to her father to tell him about her grandmother and her mother’s pregnancy with baby “Gourd.” Her father has recently abandoned the family, and although Swiv is told that he is going on a trip, it is later revealed that he left because he is unconvinced that the baby is his. While her mother goes to work as an actor (with lots of interpersonal problems with her stage manager and director), Swiv and her elderly grandmother spend time together. It is unclear who is caring for who as Swiv adeptly manages her grandmother’s medication regimen while also soaking up her quirks and advice as she goes. I’ve seen Swiv compared to Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird, which I think comes from her spunk, independence, and creativity in narrating the story. The book is relatively short, but it is a delightful character study about a small, unconventional family, who fiercely love each other despite their flaws.
Rating: 8/10
7. Trespasses - Louise Kennedy
Fiction, 289 pages
Anyone who knows me or has been reading this blog for a bit knows that I’m a sucker for a good book set in Ireland. Bonus points if it takes place in Northern Ireland and is about the Troubles. Trespasses is advertised as just this – the story of Cushla, a young Catholic school teacher and part-time barmaid who falls for an older Protestant attorney, Michael, who she meets in her family’s pub. The book takes place outside of Belfast amidst the raging violence of the Troubles. Cushla and Michael must keep their relationship a secret for fear of reprisal, despite her participation in Michael’s Protestant elite dinner party circle. To highlight the stakes of the discovery of their relationship, Louise Kennedy inserts the McGeown family as foils for Cushla and Michael’s potential future. The McGeown family is comprised of a Catholic father, Protestant mother, and their children – one of whom, Davy, is in Cushla’s class at school – who are mocked and harassed relentlessly. One day, Mr. McGeown’s body is left for dead after a brutal attack. In the wake of the assault, Cushla takes Davy under her wing, further exposing her reputation and safety. I enjoyed the book but do think it moved a tad slowly. I felt like Kennedy tried to write a character-driven book with an enticing plot, but in her attempt to straddle both facets, she failed to achieve true success on either front. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the book and felt that I was exposed to a specific slice of life amidst the Troubles of the not-so-distant past.
Rating: 8/10
6. The Bullet That Missed - Richard Osman
Fiction, 337 pages
The Bullet That Missed is the third book in Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club series, and I’d argue his best. Readers are reacquainted with a ragtag group of British senior home residents who have now become quite good at solving mysteries and murders. This time, the group attempts to solve the murder of an up-and-coming TV personality whose car was driven off a cliff. At the same time, the group, led by ex-MI6 agent Elizabeth, are trying to prevent one of their own from being killed by a Swedish cryptocurrency mob head. You don’t necessarily need to have read the previous two books to understand what is going on, but character development as well as some of the plot is built upon their exploits from the previous books. This is a great example of a book that might not have received a perfect rating but was extremely enjoyable and worth the read nonetheless. It is escapist and entertaining, filled with wonderful characters that you root for throughout the entire book, including, even, the bad guys.
Rating: 8.5/10
5. The Book of Goose - Yiyun Lee
Fiction, 348 pages
Fabienne and Agnès are childhood best friends from the countryside of France. Their early years have been forged by the deprivations of the Second World War and they live in its shadow as young adults. Fabienne’s mother is dead and she has been pulled from school to take care of the animals and home, and Agnès is not expected to attend past her early teenage years. Although they are eventually expected to marry and be farmers’ wives, they are not content with their pre-determined fate. Instead, Fabienne and Agnès spend their time coming up with exploits and making up stories, including one that Fabienne dictates to Agnès to write down in her practiced penmanship. The story, edited and coaxed along by the town’s widowed postmaster, catches the attention of a publishing house in Paris, and becomes a sensation for its depiction of the cruelty of the countryside as told through the eyes of a young girl. Fearful of the spotlight, Fabienne allows Agnès to claim credit for the work, which launches Agnès out of their small town to Paris and then an English preparatory school. I gave this book an 8.5/10 instead of a higher rating because I couldn’t fully wrap my head around why Fabienne so willingly gave up the rights to her own story, although that’s just my own quibble. In reality, The Book of Goose is a beautifully written book about friendship and adolescence set at a time of great cultural and political upheaval.
Rating: 8.5/10
4. The Great Man Theory - Teddy Wayne
Fiction, 320 pages
The Great Man Theory follows Paul, a deeply unlikable middle-aged divorcé who eschews contemporary culture, digital media, and the direction he sees American life going in. It is the era of Trump, and Paul, a dissatisfied liberal adjunct professor righteously believes that everyone, down to the Brooklyn parents of his daughter’s social circle, are part of the problem. In addition to the country’s decline, Paul himself is in free-fall. He has recently been demoted to a part-time professor position for first-year writing at a middling college comprised of trust fund kids with no real intellect. Because of the pay cut that came with his demotion, Paul must move in with his widowed mother in the Bronx where he discovers that she has been converted into a Fox News watching octogenarian; his worst nightmare. His daughter, entering her pre-teen years, is suddenly embarrassed by him and disinterested in the activities that used to fill their weekends during his custody time. Once a man proud of his flip-phone toting status (the draft of his book is called “The Luddite Manifesto”), Paul becomes into the person he hates the most, obsessed with Twitter and influence. Chaos (and hilarity) ensues in a book that veers close to satire if not for its generously accurate picture of reality. Wayne’s writing is clear and sharp and I was invested in Paul’s story the entire time, even if I wasn’t invested in Paul himself.
Rating: 8.5/10
3. Signal Fires - Dani Shapiro
Fiction, 221 pages
Dani Shapiro, the author of Signal Fires, thanks Jennifer Egan, the author of A Visit from the Goon Squad and The Candy House, in her acknowledgments for reading a draft of the book and showing her that using a linear writing style can be boring. Taking the advice of her friend, Dani Shapiro has written a lovely family saga that tells the stories of the inhabitants of two households on Division Street in a suburb of New York City over the course of 40 years. The first scene of Signal Fires takes place in 1985. The Wilf children, Sarah and Theo, are in a car with Theo behind the wheel. Theo, who doesn’t have his license but is driving for his sister who is a little drunk, loses control of the car and hits a tree on Division Street, instantly killing their friend in the passenger seat. The Wilf family will have to live with the consequences of this night for the rest of their lives, mostly through trauma rather than legal action. Around fifteen years later a new family moves in across the street. They know nothing about the accident that took place just down the block, only knowing the tree for the luscious flowers that were planted around it in the wake of the girl’s death. Shapiro jumps back and forth in time, revisiting different periods of her characters lives to fully flesh out the bonds that connect them all. This is a beautiful story about unexpected love and found family in the face of tragedy. I loved the book for its ability to shine a light on ordinary people and make them seem extraordinary.
Rating: 9/10
2. The Marriage Portrait - Maggie O’Farrell
Historical Fiction, 335 pages
Beginning in Florence in the 1550s, Maggie O’Farrell imagines the life of Lucrezia, the third daughter of the Florentine Grand Duke. As the third daughter, Lucrezia’s life’s purpose is to marry well, but the stakes of her marriage are not as high as her elder sisters. When her older sister dies after being betrothed to the duke of Ferrara, which would have been a powerful union between two kingdoms, Lucrezia is offered up in her stead. Married as a young teenager, Lucrezia’s sole purpose is now to provide an heir to her new husband, who is dealing with internal political strife, so as to secure his throne. But Lucrezia is just a girl herself and struggles to assimilate in a strange new land with a conniving and controlling husband. A year passes and there is still no child. To commemorate his young bride, the duke commissions her portrait to be painted, which Lucrezia sits for all the while realizing that her husband means to kill her. Just like in Hamnet, O’Farrell has the extraordinary capacity to bring long-forgotten characters to life. I felt like I could perfectly imagine the workings of the different Italian Renaissance courts and wanted to scream from the sidelines to steer Lucrezia in the right direction. If Maggie O’Farrell is writing, I’m reading, and The Marriage Portrait did not disappoint.
Rating: 9/10
1. A Thousand Acres - Jane Smiley
Fiction, 371 pages
A Thousand Acres won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1992, and is the book that inspired my goal to read every Pulitzer winner. Billed as a modern retelling of King Lear (which I have not read, so I can’t speak to the comparisons), A Thousand Acres begins when the family patriarch - a rich Iowan farmer who presides over a thousand acres of land - decides to pass on the farm to his three daughters. No one can quite figure out why he has decided to do this now; he is, after all, still capable of leading the farm himself and unable to fully relinquish the control he enjoyed for decades. Concerned about his motivations, the youngest daughter, Caroline, objects to his decision and then is swiftly cut out of the will. The tensions created by this brash act set the stage for the unraveling of the family. Unable to find a way to pass the time, the father becomes even more domineering than before, allowing long-simmering conflicts to bubble to the surface and revealing deeply held secrets. A Thousand Acres is the rare piece of literary fiction where the plot is as expertly crafted as the characters themselves. This is a book where things happen, complete with lots of drama that builds to a breaking point. But even amidst the noise, Smiley takes the time to create an intimate portrayal of three sisters and the chores of their daily lives, which only serves to enhance the stakes of the storm around them. I loved this book. 30 years after publication, I can confidently say that it still stands the test of time.
Rating: 10/10
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Want to see last month’s round up? You can find that here.