January 2022 Reading Round-Up
The best and worst of my reading month
Welcome to the January 2022 Reading Round-Up. Each month, I write about the books I read and rank them from worst to best.
I had an exceptional reading month in both quantity and quality. I usually try to review every book that I finish, however, I read so many outstanding books that if I reviewed them all a) no one would read the whole post and b) the file would become too large to send. Although I’m not publishing a full review for the nine books at the bottom of my list, I want to encourage you to still consider them, especially the books that I rated an 8, so if you are interested please click on each title to read a summary. The remaining 11 books each brought something different to the table, from non-fiction on the American political climate, cults, and prisons to fiction exploring dystopian futures for mothering, multi-generational family sagas, and campus scandals. Make sure you read to the end for my first “10” of the year. Happy reading!
20. The Matzah Ball - Jean Meltzer
Fiction/Romance, Rating: 5/10
19. The Heart Principle - Helen Hoang
Fiction/Romance, Rating: 6/10
18. How to Love Your Neighbor - Sophie Sullivan
Fiction/Romance, Rating: 6/10
Thank you to St. Martin’s Press for the advance reader copy of this book. If you’d like to read my full review for the publisher you can find the review here.
17. The President and the Frog - Carolina de Robertis
Fiction, Rating: 6.5/10
16. A Lot Like Adios - Alexis Daria
Fiction, Rating: 6.5/10
15. Taking Down Backpage - Maggie Krell
Nonfiction/Memoir, Rating: 7/10
Thank you to NYU Press for the advanced reader copy of this book. If you’d like to read my full review for the publisher you can find the link to that review here.
14. A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself - Peter Ho Davies
Fiction, Rating: 8/10
13. A Calling for Charlie Barnes - Joshua Ferris
Fiction, Rating: 8/10
12. Sankofa - Chibundu Onuzo
Fiction, Rating: 8/10
11. A Mother’s Reckoning - Sue Klebold
Non-Fiction/Memoir, 336 pages
On April 20, 1999, Sue Klebold’s son, Dylan Klebold, walked into Columbine High School with Eric Harris and killed twelve people in what was, at the time, the deadliest school shooting in American history. A Mother’s Reckoning, published in 2016, is Sue Klebold’s memoir. It is roughly divided into three parts: Klebold’s assessment of Dylan and her family before the shooting, her trauma and mourning following the tragedy, and her anti-suicide work in recent years (it is important to note that all the proceeds from this book were donated to suicide prevention charities). Klebold wants her readers to understand that this could happen to them too. Throughout the course of the book she writes many times about the lack of warning signs that she observed with Dylan. In fact, in the days leading up to April 20, she had hope for Dylan’s future; he had just attended prom and had picked his college dorm room. In the days, months, and years following Columbine, Klebold writes about her struggles with severe anxiety and depression as she came to terms with her child’s actions and the vitriol directed against her as a parent.
This is definitely a fascinating book, but obviously not one without questionable qualities. In order to reconcile the atrocities that Dylan committed and the hate with which he targeted specific students, particularly students of color, Klebold places much of the ideological blame on Eric Harris and has honed in on Dylan as a victim of suicide, which is technically true. While her present suicide prevention work is admirable, in many ways I felt like her simplification of Dylan’s motivations did a disservice to the victims who were killed, injured, or who must live with the trauma of this day for the rest of their lives. This feels especially true given the knowledge that there were many bombs planted by Harris and Klebold throughout Columbine that would have killed hundreds more if they had exploded as planned, turning a massacre into one of epic proportions. Despite this, I am still impressed with what this memoir was able to achieve. In a world in which strong opinions are valued over nuance, Klebold proves that two things can be true at once: enduring love for the child that she knew and unimaginable grief and anger directed towards his actions.
Rating: 8/10
10. Wildland - Evan Osnos
Political Non-Fiction, 417 pages
Like the subtitle suggests, Wildland tells the story of America’s political unravelling over the past 20 years. Osnos, a staff writer for the New Yorker, uses the interweaving narratives of three cities that he has lived in throughout his life to highlight these shifts in American culture and politics. The first city, Osnos’ hometown Greenwich, Connecticut, is used to show the widening wealth gap in the country that has grown in large part because of financial deregulation and the resulting winner-take-all attitude of Wall Street financiers. The second city, Charleston, West Virginia, highlights the other end of the income-earning spectrum through discussion of a coal industry quickly becoming obsolete within a state riddled by industry lobbyists fearful of change. Finally, Osnos writes about Chicago and the stark racial segregation within its neighborhoods that correlates with rates of violence and opportunity.
While there is no doubt that Osnos is a talented writer, I do not think that he made an original contribution to the abundant literature on American democratic backsliding and political division. Instead, Osnos did a good job using his three cities to summarize major events and cultural trends in American history over the past twenty years - the 2008 Recession, the election of Donald Trump, gun culture, police brutality, the widening wealth gap, white grievance - and forming a cohesive narrative about how they have impacted society, even if some of the description was just a summary of what took place. If you are looking for exceptional work in this field, I encourage you to read The Unwinding by George Packer, which was published in 2013 and does an outstanding job of describing the American wealth gap and stagnation of the American dream without relying on Trump to serve as the ultimate explanation.
Rating: 8/10
9. Cultish - Amanda Montell
Non-Fiction/Conspiracy Theories and Cults, 320 pages
When people think about cults, more often than not people think of extremist groups united under the rule of a charismatic leader. Less frequently do we extend this association to social media personalities or fitness brands. In Cultish, Montell makes the argument that cults, loosely defined, can crop up anywhere people are looking for a sense of belonging. Although they vary in the danger they present to their members and the outside world, what binds them together is the language employed by their leaders to attract and maintain their membership. In making this argument, Montell exposes readers to infamous cults such as Heaven’s Gate and the Church of Scientology. In my opinion, however, the most interesting section, potentially because it was the section that I could most relate to, was when Montell talked about the cultish language and techniques utilized by fitness brands like SoulCycle, CrossFit and Peloton. The language and marketing used at these companies are designed specifically to encourage active devotion to the brand and what it has to offer beyond a 45-minute workout. While not a harm to society like other cults are, Montell encourages readers to be aware of blind fanaticism and carefully curated brands.
This book is advertised as explaining the “language of fanaticism,” and while there is definitely an emphasis on how language can grow and contribute to a cult, I found that Montell had a hard time maintaining her linguistic argument and instead veered into larger holistic explanations. In keeping with this critique it is important to note that this is not a piece of academic work. Montell’s qualifications in linguistics are limited to her undergraduate degree, which may be why her advertised focus on cult language veers off topic frequently. The book is also written very casually, with frequent sarcastic commentary from the author provided in the footnotes and within parentheses that, while funny, highlight the author’s biases and millennial outlook. However, if you are looking to learn generally about different types of cults and how they relate to our lives, this is certainly an entertaining and informative read.
Rating: 8/10
8. Apples Never Fall - Lianne Moriarty
Fiction/Mystery, 480 pages
The Delaney family was a powerhouse in the Australian world of tennis. The parents, Stan and Joy, were until recently the owners of a famous tennis school, known for producing a world-class tennis star. Their four children, all now grown adults, were talented tennis players on their own, but each grew up and left the sport behind to forge their own paths and make their own mistakes. One night, a woman named Savannah arrives on Stan and Joy’s doorstep claiming that she is a victim of domestic violence and fleeing her abusive partner. Stan and Joy take her in, and one night’s hospitality quickly morphs into days and weeks. Stan and Joy’s children look skeptically at Savannah, who seamlessly inserts herself into their lives despite her inability to account for her backstory. Who is this random woman and what does she want? When Joy goes missing just days after Savannah leaves, the police look at Stan as the prime suspect and the children are forced to reckon with their family’s past in order to decipher their present.
Apples Never Fall is a fairly long book. While the first half felt like it could have done with some light editing to make it shorter, the second half of the book was very propulsive. The short chapters that jump through time each ended with a minor twist that kept me turning pages even after I knew I should go to sleep. I read this book partly via audio and partly with a physical copy and thought the audio version worked well with the first half of the book as Moriarty developed the characters and the physical version was perfect for when I wanted to speed through to find out what happens next.
Rating: 8/10
7. Small Admissions - Amy Poeppel
Fiction, 368 pages
Kate Prescott is 25-years-old and adrift. After stumbling her way through an interview for an admissions counselor position at an elite Manhattan private school that her sister Angela arranged for her, Kate is offered the opportunity to reinvent herself. Told in alternating perspectives between Kate, Angela, and Kate’s two college friends, readers are given multi-perspective glimpses into Kate’s character development as well as different views of the admissions process. The author, Amy Poeppel, worked as an admissions counselor herself and I would not be surprised if she drew inspiration from that experience for this book. Kate’s job requires interviewing 6th graders, reviewing their test scores and application essays, and interviewing their wealthy parents. Tensions are high for parents who see middle school acceptances as the gilded pathway to an elite high school and elite university and they do not take rejection lightly, leading to the dramatic conclusion of the book. Small Admissions offers a critique of the insane Manhattan private school admissions process without being preachy. Maybe it’s because I’ve recently applied to law schools and my applications are being reviewed by admissions teams, but I found that even if Poeppel relies a bit on cliché, those clichés make for an entertaining and relevant story. If you are looking for an easy-to-read, enjoyable novel with a strong sense of place and quirky characters, this is the book for you.
Rating: 8.5/10
6. The School for Good Mothers - Jessamine Chan
Fiction, 336 pages
Frida Liu is a single mother struggling to maintain her job while raising her toddler, Harriet. One day, in a fit of frustration, Frida makes a mistake. She leaves her daughter alone for two hours while she drives to her office to pick up paperwork. A neighbor who hears Harriet's crying decides to call the police and Harriet is taken out of Frida's custody and given to Frida's ex-husband and young girlfriend while the state determines Frida's parental status. Worried that Frida's behavior is indicative of larger parenting deficiencies, Frida is sent to the School for Good Mothers, a pioneering institution designed to take "bad mothers" - mothers whose offenses range from letting their kid walk home alone from the library to not preventing their child from taking a fall on the playground - and reform them with lessons over the course of one institutionalized and carefully monitored year. If the mothers decide not to enroll, their parental rights will be severed. If they complete the year, the judge will review the evidence that has been collected and make a final determination. As Frida's situation quickly spirals out of control it becomes clear that the odds are not stacked in any mother's favor, including Frida's. The state that Chan has built intentionally does not look very different from the one that we occupy, but in this version of reality the stakes have been raised significantly, creating tension-filled and anxiety provoking chapters. My biggest critique came from the length of time spent on the descriptions of daily life within the school, which dragged on for a bit too long and dulled the drama and anticipation that was so expertly built in the first quarter of the novel. Despite this, I enjoyed The School for Good Mothers not only because it was a well-crafted and well-written book, but also because of the larger questions that the storyline raised, such as what does a good mother look like and what role the state should have in ensuring the welfare of children. This is certainly a novel that I will be thinking about for a long time to come.
Rating: 8.5/10
Thank you to Simon and Schuster for the advanced reader copy of this book.
5. Vladimir - Julia May Jonas
Fiction, 256 pages
At face value, Vladimir follows an unnamed narrator, a 58-year-old English professor at a small college in upstate New York, who is married to John, a fellow professor facing accusations of inappropriate sexual relationships with students many years prior. The narrator is not surprised by the allegations - she knew about the relationships at the time - but disputes the claim that they were not consensual. John and the narrator still live together but have grown apart naturally over the years, coexisting in the same house and within their respective lives. When two new professors, Vladimir and Cynthia, move to town, the narrator becomes interested in the couple and their vitality, but especially with Vladimir. Interestingly, however, the plot points that will probably be used to advertise the book, including the ones described above, are not necessarily the point of the book or what propels it forward. Instead, the book is full of contemplation about the hard questions of aging, social values, and power dynamics.
I assume that the author made a deliberate choice by never giving her narrator a name. The narrator, a 58-year-old woman, is self-conscious about her body and very conscious about how she is perceived by others. Her interactions with students are couched in her desire to be liked and appreciated and she is fearful of being deemed matronly or old when she interacts with Vladimir. At the end of the day, despite the fact that it was her husband who transgressed, the narrator endures the cost of his actions after being asked to stop teaching and forced to contend with students who are uncomfortable by her presence. Indeed, she appears distinctly visible to others only within the context of outside judgement of her marriage, leaving the narrator to assert her own idea of control.
Rating: 8.5/10
Thank you to Avid Reader Press for the advanced reader copy of this book.
4. The Fourth Child - Jessica Winter
Fiction, 352 pages
In the waning days of high school, Jane, a devoutly Catholic girl living in the suburbs of Buffalo, becomes pregnant. It is the end of the 1970s and Jane’s only choice, it appears, is to get married and have the child, which Jane does. In the next few years Jane becomes pregnant two more times, resulting in three small children in her early-twenties. After her husband has a vasectomy and Jane suffers from a miscarriage, Jane has a crisis of conscience stemming from her Catholic upbringing and its emphasis on the value of life. Jane becomes involved in the local chapter of an anti-abortion group, participating in protests and sit-ins outside of local abortion clinics. In the early 1990s, after watching Barbara Walters do a segment on the squalid conditions in Romanian orphanages, Jane decides that it is her calling from god to adopt a baby girl, just as her fourth child would have been before her miscarriage. The irony of how the squalid conditions in the Romanian orphanages came to be – a lack of access to abortion and contraception that left poor families no choice but to give their babies up for adoption - appears lost on earnest Jane. But the child she returns home with, Mirela, is difficult and traumatized and causes friction with Jane’s three biological children. It is around this point when readers are introduced to the perspective of Lauren, Jane’s oldest child, who provides a continuation of the book’s themes of womanhood and the challenges in growing up. Lauren has choices, and while still struggling to discover who she is, is not defined by the mistakes of adolescence like her mother. What stuck with me most about this book were the personalized descriptions of the anti-abortion movement. Instead of relying on stereotypes, Winter provided intimate and complex portraits of people driven by faith without using moralistic or judgmental tones. Her writing beautifully attempts to portray real people as they are, such as Jane, in their search for fulfillment.
Rating: 9/10
3. Love Lockdown - Elizabeth Greenwood
Non-Fiction/Prison Relationships, 244 pages
Love Lockdown is an exploration of love and relationships in which one partner is incarcerated and the other is not. Greenwood mostly focuses on couples that met while one of the partners was incarcerated, whether through prison pen pal websites, news attention, or mutual friends. To highlight these experiences, Greenwood is calculated in the types of relationships that she writes about, attempting to draw attention to the different circumstances of different couples. Throughout the course of her reporting, Greenwood discovered a large support system and online community that exists for couples that met while incarcerated, including the Strong Prison Wives network, which is comprised of non-incarcerated wives across the country who have banded together to counter judgement from the outside. Where I would have liked to see more of an exploration would have been for relationships that already existed before the partner was incarcerated. Greenwood’s explanation for this omission felt lackluster. It seems that after speaking to a few criminal justice experts, she came to the soft conclusion that many pre-existing relationships just do not last, which may be true, but does not particularly account for why so many relationships are still able to begin on less stable foundations.
I was not expecting to be as enthralled by this book as I was. Greenwood is very clear from the beginning that she is not a fully objective third party reporter and concedes that it is possible she broke journalism ethics rules when buying snacks for inmates or when she called one of the prison wives with concerns about the woman’s susceptibility to domestic violence upon the release of her husband. I do not think that this detracts from the story that Greenwood is trying to tell. If anything, it is an asset to be able to highlight such intimate details of these people’s lives, which she is only able to collect through her personal relationships with these characters.
Rating: 9/10
2. This Must Be the Place - Maggie O’Farrell
Fiction, 382 pages
I am a big fan of Maggie O’Farrell’s work. Hamnet, a fictionalized account of Shakespeare’s son’s life and I Am I Am I Am, O’Farrell’s memoir using her 17 brushes with death (see my review in my top 5 books of 2021), are two stellar examples of O’Farrell’s exceptional and diversified writing talents. This Must Be the Place is a multigenerational family saga stretching from Donegal, Ireland to London to Brooklyn to the Bay Area in California. While the chapters jump around in time and narrator, they are all generally centered around the life of Daniel Sullivan, a linguist with a complicated family background. When readers meet Daniel in chapter 1 he is living in a remote house in Donegal with his reclusive ex-film star wife Claudette and their two children. As the chapters unfold readers learn about Daniel’s two children in San Francisco who he hasn’t heard from in years due to an acrimonious divorce and a complicated romantic past during a graduate year abroad that potentially ended in his girlfriend’s death. The characters that construct each of these portions of Daniel’s life appear throughout the novel to provide context for how the reader arrived at a present that is not as rosy as it originally seems. The review in the New York Times criticized O’Farrell for giving bit characters too much time as narrators, however, while it is natural to associate or appreciate some characters more than others, I disagree with this critique. I think the amount of people O’Farrell is able to write first-person narratives for – across gender, location, time period, and nationality – underscores O’Farrell’s numerous literary talents and is a stellar advertisement for why people should read this book.
Rating: 9/10
1. Mouth To Mouth - Antoine Wilson
Fiction, 192 pages
While waiting for a connecting flight to Berlin, the unnamed narrator of Mouth to Mouth notices an old classmate of his from UCLA, Jeff, waiting for the same flight. As they wait out their flight's delay in the first-class lounge at JFK, Jeff regales him with stories of his life, or more specifically, the defining story of his life. Twenty years ago, a few years after they graduated from college, Jeff was running on the beach early in the morning when he noticed an unresponsive man floating in the ocean. Realizing there was no one else around, Jeff made the decision to run into the water, pull the man out, and perform life-saving CPR. After the man is whisked off to the ambulance, Jeff becomes obsessed with figuring out the identity of the swimmer as a way to understand the consequences of saving a life. He discovers that the swimmer was Francis Arsenault, a successful and excessively rich Los Angeles art dealer, and is hired as a receptionist at his art gallery. Although Francis and Jeff grow closer, Francis never acknowledges the day on the beach and Jeff is left wondering whether or not the lack of recognition is intentional, which paves the way for the novel's dramatic conclusion.
Readers are exposed to the entirety of Jeff's story through Jeff as he becomes intoxicated and the entire time I was left wondering what was true and what was false. While the narrator never challenges the events of the story he does become increasingly uneasy as the story progresses, especially after he discovers that he is the first person that Jeff has ever shared this story with. The combination of Wilson's unreliable narrator and the slow escalation of tension made for an exceptional novel, one that I read compulsively as I tried to figure out how it would end and continue to think about now.
Rating: 10/10
Thank you to Simon and Schuster/Avid Reader Press for the advanced reader copy of this book.
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Want to see last month’s round up? You can find that here.
Thanks for these recommendations. Many good books here, I've put a hold on a couple of them on Libby. I can't wait until I can read them.