October 2023 Reading Round-Up
The best and worst of my reading month
Welcome to the October 2023 Reading Round-Up. Each month I write about the books I’ve read and rank them from worst to best.
Full disclosure. There are fewer books on this month’s list than normal. I have been busy. Between classes, activities, travel, current events, and a birthday celebration, I have not had as much time to sit and read as I normally do. In the time that I did have, I found myself drawn to fiction over non-fiction, often seeking a brief escape from reality or material that was just inherently easier to digest. The world is heavy, and I sometimes did not have the energy to pick up a book at the end of the day. That’s okay. The Great British Baking Show exists for a reason as do books across genres that can be soothing and match a current need. Maybe a book on this list will serve one of those purposes for you.
October 2023 Reading Stats
Number of Books Read: 6
Genre Breakdown: 100% Fiction (6 books)
Average Rating: 8.42/10
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6. The Other Americans - Laila Lalami
Fiction, 303 pages
Nora Guerraoui was eating dinner in an Oakland restaurant when she got a call that her father had been killed in a hit and run near her childhood home in the Mojave desert. Nora is determined to get answers from the police about who might have committed the crime, which allows her to reunite with an old high school friend and current sheriff’s deputy at the local police department. The Other Americans is told from a variety of perspectives, including that of Nora’s father and mother, two immigrants from Morocco with conflicting views of assimilation. Readers are also given insight by the lead detective, Nora’s love interest, and the suspect in the hit and run, amongst others, leading to an over-crowded narrative about family, belonging, and justice.
The premise of this book initially reminded me of All That’s Left Unsaid by Tracey Lien, one of my favorite books from this year about a sister searching for the truth about her brother’s murder within an Australian-Vietnamese community. Ultimately, however, these books are not apt comparisons, as Lalami tried to do far too much thematically and narratively. Instead of choosing a central protagonist to center the story, Lalami alternated perspectives between around six characters. This many perspectives inevitably meant that some were more developed than others, including one that was a caricature of a person, replete with stereotypical behavior that the general message of the book is trying to combat. Even within the chapters of the more nuanced characters, the dialogue frequently fell flat, signaling the difference between a well-crafted and poorly-constructed novel.
Rating: 7/10
5. A Place for Us - Fatima Farheen Mirza
Fiction, 400 pages
For the first time in three years, Hadia’s family of five has gathered in the same place to celebrate her marriage. Although everyone wants to make sure the day is a success, tensions are high between Hadia’s brother and parents following a fractious argument that initiated their separation. What caused this rupture in a previously tight-knit Muslim-Indian-American family? Mirza explores this question by jumping backwards and forwards in time, often without distinction other than a paragraph break, to weave a portrait of complicated family dynamics and the friction between assimilation, faith, and tradition.
As a story about the fabric of a family - an intricate and beautifully written one at that - I was perplexed why only four of the five family members were given space to develop, while one sister languished in everyone’s peripheral vision. This normally would not matter so much, but in a story that is propelled through the constant alternation of first-person familial perspectives, omitting this one voice felt like a structural issue. Overall, however, I think that this book was remarkable for its deft depiction of the tensions between parental control, familial love, and an individual’s need for self-discovery.
Rating: 8/10
4. Summer Sisters - Judy Blume
Fiction, 410 pages
I bought Summer Sisters in the McNally Jackson knock-off in Laguardia Airport while waiting for a flight to North Carolina a few weeks ago. Uninspired by the Swedish tome I had packed (and since given up on), this was the perfect travel companion for my 24 hour journey. Right before school lets out in New Mexico in 1977, Caitlin Somers asks Victoria Leonard if she wants to spend the summer with her at her dad’s house on Martha’s Vineyard. Victoria, the oldest of four kids, jumps at the opportunity to escape the confines of her small home for the adventure of a summer away. Caitlin and Victoria, not particularly close before the invitation, become like sisters over the course of the next few months, and the years to come. Summer Sisters tracks their friendship from childhood through their early twenties, when college, social class, and different personal priorities push them away from the intensity of the early stages of their relationship.
The cover and jacket description of this book make it seem like the story will be a light-hearted, girly romp, which does everyone, including the masterful Judy Blume, a disservice. Summer Sisters is one of Blume’s few novels for adults, tackling the beautiful and confounding nature of female friendship, young love, family troubles, and personal striving. The book is about growing up and found family, as well as reconciling relationships with those left behind. It is also a wonderful portrait of the seventies and eighties on Martha’s Vineyard and New York, told through the eyes of Victoria, but also an occasional contribution from the book’s large cast of characters. The dialogue did sometimes strike me as a tad unnatural, but I felt like I got used to it as the story progressed. Although the book tackled a lot, and maybe some of the issues could have been cut to streamline the narrative, I thoroughly enjoyed this fast-paced and nuanced novel by a great American novelist.
Rating: 8.5/10
3. A Kind of Freedom - Margaret Wilkerson Sexton
Fiction, 256 pages
Long-listed for the 2018 National Book Award, A Kind of Freedom is the story of one New Orleans family told over the course of three generations. Evelyn, the family matriarch, came of age during World War II and the Jim Crow era. Her father, a prominent doctor, wants nothing more than for Evelyn to marry within their social class so that he can shelter her, as much as possible, from the daily injustices of being a Black American in the South. Jackie, one of Evelyn’s daughters, is a single mother dealing with her husband’s addiction to crack-cocaine in the 1980s. Largely absent from their lives, Jackie must provide for her family while coming to terms with what caused her husband to spiral. The final perspective is provided by Jackie’s son, T.C., who has been in and out of prison for growing and selling marijuana after Hurricane Katrina. While the legal underpinnings of Jim Crow may have been dismantled by the time Jackie is born, Sexton has constructed a clear story about the impacts of structural racism on subsequent generations. A Kind of Freedom is an impressive debut by an author with an eye for weaving individual perspectives into a larger narrative.
Rating: 8.5/10
2. The Rehearsal - Eleanor Catton
Fiction, 309 pages
Much of The Rehearsal takes place in the studio of a local saxophone teacher, where students take individual lessons on how to play the instrument while simultaneously spilling their secrets. One of the saxophone teacher’s students is Isolde, the younger sister of an underage girl who was recently caught having an affair with her jazz band instructor. As the community attempts to reconcile and move on, the saxophone teacher collects snippets of the drama, gossip, and reaction as her students file through. When the local drama school - The Drama Institute - hears about the story, the first-year students decide to turn the story into their year-end show, which is told on a parallel track to the scenes in the saxophone teacher’s studio.
This book is much more complicated and layered than it may seem from the description. “All the world’s a stage,” is an apt descriptor for how the students conduct themselves, and readers are never quite sure if what is being described is real or part of the performance. The characters, all larger than life, embody this conundrum; is this how these people are, or are their features exaggerated for the purposes of an audience? The Rehearsal was Eleanor Catton’s 2011 debut, and since its publication Catton has become better known for her Booker Prize winning historical masterpiece The Luminaries and this year’s stunning Birnam Wood. The Rehearsal emphasizes the immense literary range that Catton has always possessed, as well as her near genius mastery of structural composition.
Rating: 9/10
1. The Best American Short Stories 2022 - Collected Authors, Edited by Andrew Sean Greer
Fiction/Short Stories, 305 pages
It’s hard to write a comprehensive review of a collection comprised of twenty stories written by twenty different authors and featured in a myriad of different American publications. There is no one common theme that runs throughout, other than that they were all deemed by Andrew Sean Greer, this year’s editor and a Pulitzer winner in his own right, to be the best short fiction published in 2022. I throughly enjoyed 18 of the 20 stories, which I think is a pretty good ratio given the disparate writing styles, subject matter, and structures of the collection’s components. Featured writers include the well-known and acclaimed, such as Lauren Groff, Gish Jen, and Bryan Washington, as well as other lesser-known authors. I thoroughly enjoyed the paragraphs at the end of the collection that explained the authors’ inspiration for their stories, which often added context and depth to their allotted pages. I’ve previously written about my love for and the benefit of reading short stories, but prior to reading this collection, I typically only read compilations with ten or so stories from just one author at any given time. This “best of” book gave me samples of writing from a variety of personal and literary backgrounds, and fed me fully-realized and beautifully constructed stories at a time when tackling a whole novel felt like a tall task.
Rating: 9.5/10
All of the books written about above are available on my October 2023 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.
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Want to see past months’ round ups? You can find those here and below.
It looks like you had a good month, Jodi! You piqued my interest in the Eleanor Catton novel ◡̈
Auraist's focus is on the quality of prose, so here are our rankings for October releases in various genres in the UK, best to worst for stylistic excellence and originality:
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Nonfiction
Twist by Adele Bertei
The Double Life of Bob Dylan Volume 2: 1966-2021 by Clinton Heylin
Shame by Annie Ernaux
The New Leviathans by John Gray
Politics on the Edge by Rory Stewart
Ruskin Park: Sylvia, Me and the BBC by Rory Cellan-Jones
The Six: The Untold Story of America’s First Women Astronauts by Loren Grush
Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World by Naomi Klein
Stay True by Hua Hsu
Great-Uncle Harry by Michael Palin
Everything Is Everything by Clive Myrie
The Long Game: Inside Sinn Féin by Aoife Moore
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Speculative fiction
The Circumference of the World by Lavie Tidhar
Girlfriend on Mars by Deborah Willis
Bride of the Tornado by James Kennedy
The Land of Lost Things by John Connolly
The Blue, Beautiful World by Karen Lord
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Crime/thrillers
Everybody Knows by Jordan Harper
You’d Look Better As a Ghost by Joanna Wallace
The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman
Tell Me Your Secrets by Mel McGrath
The Winter List by SG MacLean
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Literary fiction
The Variations by Patrick Langley
The Maniac by Benjamín Labatut
North Woods by Daniel Mason
The Seventh Son by Sebastian Faulks
Absolutely & Forever by Rose Tremain
The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff
The Glutton by AK Blakemore
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Here's the opening to The Variations:
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I. ELLEN
On a winter morning in 1518, in the Holy Roman city of Strasbourg, Frau Trauffea started to sing. This was not unusual in itself. But she was in public, in the middle of the street, wearing a gown but no hat in the windblown sleet. A young woman with a round face and long, red hair, she was neither a professional singer nor a beggar. Nor was she singing to any accompaniment – not that anyone else could hear, at least. Passers-by paused and gawped as her gestures grew savage and emphatic. Some, both concerned and confused, dropped offerings at her feet or crossed themselves in prayer. Those who stopped to watch and listen asked Frau Trauffea what she was doing. Others laughed at her, declared her mad, bewitched, possessed – predictable accusations directed now at her clothing, now at her voice.
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Noon came and went. Frau Trauffea did not eat, drink, rest, or relieve herself. Her song grew expressive of a soaring anguish, by turns delicate and desperate, emphasized by her upturned gaze and outstretched arms. No soothing word or gentle touch could persuade her to cease her wailing song, which rose and fell and rose again, two low notes followed by two long, high ones, before the melody repeated. Her exertions were brought to a halt when she collapsed in the street, from apparent exhaustion, several hours after she’d begun.
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That might have been the end of it: a minor aberration in the city’s psychic life, an outbreak of religious-seeming ecstasy in a century marked by countless similar occasions. After Frau Trauffea had been carried home, where she was fed and watered, rested and recovered, and where, in her first speech since she began, she babbled incoherently about not seeing but being her grandfather’s ghost, her first action, upon waking again, was to get out of bed, wander into the street, and sing, in a manner that suggested no force could prevent her from returning to that precise position in the busy street leading past the bishop’s palace and the bridge to St Magdalena, in the shadow of the intricately pinnacled and ballustraded bell-tower, where she continued to perform as if no time had elapsed since she’d stopped.
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She continued in this manner for days, repeating the same compulsion. Rumours flew around the city. Small crowds gathered to watch. Coins, flowers, dried fruit and other offerings would litter the rimed, snow-dusted cobbles upon which she moved. She left them to wither and rot in the sleet that blew in at intervals. The city’s beggar children were delighted to collect the coins and baked goods Frau Trauffea didn’t seem to know, let alone care, had been dropped at her feet.
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If any of the books you've reviewed in recent months are especially well-written, Jodi, please let us know and we'll have a look. The only books we don't consider are story collections, as the standard of writing can vary so much across the collection or anthology. Thanks.