Month: September 2019

August Reading Roundup

So here we are at the end of September. I’ve been working at the FCC for eleven days now, and I’d like to say I get a little less confused every day, but that might be an optimistic assessment. I’ve been told not to worry, because the government is alphabet soup and the satellite division has even more jargon and I’ll catch on. So I’m taking the small victories, like the fact that I haven’t gotten turned around between the front door and my cubicle for a few days now.

Work-life balance is still pretty tricky. I’m having a hard time getting my sleep schedule in order, so I’m really tired, and I feel like there are so many things to do besides work—eat, sleep, exercise, write, hang out with friends, blog—and no time to do any of it. Welcome to adulthood?

I have learned a few important lessons. Lay my clothes out before I go to bed, move my alarm clock across the room, and set a second alarm just in case. You guessed it, I have already managed to sleep through my alarm and wake up an hour late with no idea what to wear to work. On the plus side, I now know exactly how fast I can move and still get to work on time, and I never want to do that again.

It’s the end of September, so I’m taking the time while my chicken and fennel are roasting to talk about the books I read in August.

Collage of the covers of the four books I read in August: To Kill a Mockingbird, Bridge to Terabithia, The Martian, and BeartownI read three books in August. Okay, technically I read four, but the fourth book was Beartown, which is not only a reread but a book that I read six months ago, so I’m not counting it toward my 2019 reading goal. I included it in the picture again because it was so much easier to make a collage of four books than three and I didn’t want to fight the app. Of the three books, one was a classic, one was middle grade fiction, and one was sci fi. Two of the three were rereads.

First, I read To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I was actually almost finished with this book at the end of July but a week of taking the bar stalled me, so I finished it in August. I first read To Kill a Mockingbird in high school. Who didn’t? To Kill a Mockingbird follows a young girl, Scout; her brother, Jem; and their friend Dill for a few years of their childhood as they grow up in Depression-era Alabama. Scout’s father is a defense attorney charged with defending an African-American man accused of raping a white girl, and we see his trial and its aftermath through Scout’s eyes. I remember thinking that it was just okay. I enjoyed it, but I found it pretty slow for most of the book. I absolutely loved it this time around. I’m older and a much more mature person and reader than I was in high school, so I appreciated the issues and how they’re woven throughout the book much more than I did then. I also just loved the level of detail in this book. Scout’s voice is so rich and vivid, and the world felt so authentic. I also loved all the lawyer jokes and legal references that went right over my head before I was a law student. I’ve heard people complain that this book shouldn’t be held up as the best example of fiction confronting racism in America, and I one hundred percent agree with that, because there are many more modern books, written by people of color, that tackle the issue. However that doesn’t make To Kill a Mockingbird a bad book. If you haven’t read it, it’s definitely worth a read. If you have read it but it’s been a while, it’s worth picking up again.

Next, I read Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson. Somehow, I never read this growing up. One of my roommates mentioned it while we were studying for the bar, and when she found out I’d never read it, she insisted that I had to. So I got it out of the library. Bridge to Terabithia follows two fifth graders who become unlikely friends in a poor town in Virginia. Together they create the kingdom of Terabithia, where they are kings and queens and have great adventures. It’s such a short book, so I’m not going to say more than that. I enjoyed this book. It made me cry. I particularly liked how Paterson wove the real, everyday troubles of her two protagonists together with the fantastic adventures they had in Terabithia. This book is not a fantasy, but it felt like it could be. It so beautifully captured that time when I was a kid when I invented magical kingdoms in the forest with my friends. Who am I kidding? I still invent magical kingdoms, just in my head now because I live in a city and there is no forest to speak of. And then there was the last third of the book, which was incredibly powerful, and which made me ball my eyes out, but also felt like it came from nowhere, and in retrospect I’m not sure how I feel about it.

Third, I reread The Martian by Andy Weir. When the third manned mission to Mars is aborted because of a dangerous sandstorm, Mark Watney is stranded on Mars. And he has to survive. By himself. On Mars. I first read The Martian the spring before I started law school. I really enjoyed it, but I thought it got too into the weeds with the science, and I found the writing style to be too cinematic for my taste. We were almost never inside a character’s head. Even Mark’s journal entries were more tell than show. While the writing-style still wasn’t my favorite thing in the world on this reread, I definitely liked this book a lot more. Part of that is that I have embraced my geeky science side and in addition to actually working in space law, I now read a lot more science fiction. My science fiction tastes tend toward (1) space, (2) fun, and (3) realistic science. All of which The Martian has. This was yet another book that I enjoyed the first time through and pretty much loved on reread. So if you haven’t read The Martian, I highly recommend you give it a chance.

Finally, I reread Beartown by Fredrik Backman. This wasn’t my original plan, but I gave a copy to my mom for her birthday, and she really loved it and was talking about it to my dad, and he proposed listening to it on the drive down to Virginia when I was moving. I loved Beartown the first time I read it. I loved it even more the second time, because knowing what was coming, I was able to  really dive in and appreciate every moment. Also, it took a second reading for me to realize that this book is set in Sweden. This book was so powerful, and it remained powerful on reread. It’s definitely one of my favorites of 2019. If you haven’t read Beartown, you need to go read it now. If you have read it, it’s honestly worth a second read. And if I haven’t convinced you, I have a full review of the book right over here.

Writing this post has taken me through dinner and my toasted banana, and now it’s time for dishes and bed. I hope to have full reviews up for the other three books I read in August soon, and I’m planning to get back on track with reviews for my September books this week, so stay tuned. And as always, if you’ve read any of these books, I’d love to know what you think.

July Reading Roundup

Hello from northern Virginia. Yes, I have successfully moved and I am writing to you from amid the many piles of boxes filling my new apartment. I am having a lot of fun organizing everything to my satisfaction. I have strong opinions on trash can designs, apparently, and I maybe alphabetized my spices. Shopping for pillows to match my couch and general color scheme is slightly less fun, because I am really bad at telling if something matches or clashes and kept liking things that turned out to be just slightly off. But it’s all coming together, and I’m really excited about it. I’ve also been doing a lot of orientation and mobility, learning my way around my neighborhood, the metro system, and the walk from my metro stop to work. And of course I’m chugging away on revisions to my book. I’m in the home stretch, and I’m happy with what I’ve done. Which probably means it’s terrible.

All in all, life is pretty crazy right now, and honestly, the idea of writing full reviews for all the books I read in July and August and then what I’m reading in September and trying to catch up was starting to stress me out. It got to the point last week when I was considering completely dropping the individual book reviews altogether and going back to just the monthly reading roundup posts. I don’t want to do that, because I’ve been enjoying the individual reviews, so unless you tell me I should do otherwise, I’m planning to continue them. But for the sake of my sanity, I’m going to switch things up a bit.

Today, I’m going to give you a reading roundup for July, and sometime soon I’ll do a reading roundup for August. Then, in the future, between book reviews for the books I’m reading currently, I’ll play some catch-up and write full posts for each of these books. This will allow me to get the full reviews done but also not to stress about catching up. And as soon as I get some of this moving craziness sorted, I plan to figure out a regular schedule for blog posts that I will mostly stick to, so look forward to that.

July was a big month for me. I took the bar. And I moved out of my apartment in Cambridge. Oh wait, that was only one week of July. It feels like that was the whole month because the whole month was building toward that week. But I also went to a friend’s wedding in Rhode Island, finally ditched the walking cane and ankle brace, and read eight books. Almost got to nine but the bar was exhausting so I didn’t read much the last week of July.

Collage of the 8 books I read in July: Presumed Innocent, Stars Above, A Woman of No Importance, The Shifter, Ash Princess, Blue Fire, The English Patient, and Darkfall.So I read eight books in July. One was nonfiction, and definitely a favorite. One was a legal thriller, which is a genre I don’t typically go for and which I actually liked despite being constantly immersed in the law otherwise. One was a short story collection. I reread five books this month—it was, as you recall, the great bar prep rereadathon—but I read three new books, including two books that were the first books in two new series. I also read one book in Braille, which I haven’t done in a long time and which I plan to do more of in the future because I miss it.

My first book of July was Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow. This was the legal thriller. A prosecutor is accused of murdering his coworker, but he’s innocent, and he goes to trial. My friend who recommended this book to me specifically recommended it to me for after the bar, because it gets pretty technical on the legal side of things. I got on the library waiting list, and it came up sooner than I expected, so I jumped on it and read it. And I’m actually glad I read it while studying for the bar. For one thing, I’m not sure I would have wanted to read it after the bar—I was so done with the law by then! For another, this book actually helped me understand criminal procedure and evidence so much better. It tallied with my bar prep course, and gave me some concrete examples to work with in my studying. I will say that I found this book to be oddly paced. Knowing that the premise is that an innocent man is accused of murder, it felt like it took a while to get there. It might not have felt so long had I not known that this was the premise, but it was right on the back cover so there wasn’t much I could do about that. I also felt like the ending of the book was a bit slow. But the middle section was great, and I was on the edge of my seat through all the courtroom stuff.  One other note: This book is pretty sexually graphic, so if you don’t like that, you won’t like this book. On the whole, I enjoyed this book. I’m not sure I would recommend it to someone, and though it is the start of a series, I don’t think I’m going to read the other books, but that’s more because the library doesn’t have the audiobooks and I didn’t enjoy the first one enough to buy the rest. That being said, if you enjoy legal thrillers this might be a great book for you.

Next, I read Stars Above by Marissa Meyer. Stars Above is the short story collection that accompanies the Lunar Chroneacles series. You could probably read this  on its own, but it’s also probably more enjoyable once you’ve read the series. We get stories from Cinder’s, Scarlet’s, Cress’s, Winter’s, Thorne’s, Kai’s, and Wolf’s, as well as some totally original characters in the universe. This book was a lot of fun. I loved getting more of the characters’ back stories, and I loved the last story in the book which takes place after the end of Winter. This was a reread for me, but my opinion hasn’t changed much since I first read it (I may have only read this book once, I’m not sure). I really liked this book, but I will say that since these stories were so heavily tied into the main series, they didn’t feel like complete stories that could stand on their own to me, but I honestly didn’t mind that in this case. That being said, my favorite story in the book is “The Little Android,” a retelling of “The Little Mermaid,” in which Cinder appears briefly in the role of Ursula (don’t freak out, Iko is not the little mermaid). All in all, this is a good book and a fun way to wrap up the Lunar Chronicles series.

After that, I read A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II by Sonia Purnell. I’ve mentioned this already in a few earlier posts, but I absolutely loved this book. It tells the story of Virginia Hall, a female spy with a prosthetic leg who worked for both the British and the Americans, spent almost the whole war in Nazi-occupied France, and practically single-handedly organized the French resistance. This was a fascinating read, and it was also an enjoyable read. The writing is so strong and vivid, I felt like I was in France with Virginia the whole way through the book. This is definitely one of my absolute favorites of 2019 so far, and it’s one I’ve been recommending to everyone I know. If you like World War II books, you need to read this. If you like spies, you need to read this. If you like feminist or disability issues, you need to read this. Whatever you like, you need to read this. So go read it. Go read it now.

My next reread was the Healing Wars series by Janice Hardy. In July I read the whole series—The Shifter, Blue Fire, and Darkfall—in quick succession. This is one  of my all-time favorite middle grade fantasy series, and it remained so after this reread. Nya lives in the war-torn and occupied city of Geveg. Her parents are dead, and her younger sister is a taker, which means she can heal injuries by taking pain and transferring it to a special metal called pynvium. Nya can take pain too, but she can’t transfer her pain to pynvium like a normal healer. She can only transfer pain to other people, which no other taker can do. If anyone finds out she can shift pain, she’ll be arrested and sent to the occupying duke either to be experimented on or to be turned into an assassin. But when the takers of Geveg start disappearing, Nya’s sister among them, Nya has to decide how much keeping that secret is really worth. There is so much I love about these books. They’re fun and fast-paced, even as they deal with really heavy subjects—they actually get pretty dark for middle grade, but they always have this light, hopeful tone that I really like. I love that Nya’s sister is actually a strong character in the books, and not just an innocent little sister on a pedestal in need of rescuing—cough Prim from The Hunger Games cough. I have a lot more to say about these books, but I will wait until I write my full reviews. Suffice it to say that this was a great series to reread right before the bar.

I also read Ash Princess by Laura Sebastian. This is the first book in a trilogy, and I am dying to get my hands on the second one. Ten years ago, Theodosia’s kingdom was invaded, and her mother was killed before her eyes. She was six years old, and the invaders spared her and raised as  a prisoner. Whenever one of her people committed a crime, Theodosia was publicly punished as an example. She’s sixteen now, and pretty much broken. And then the king—I forget what his actual title is in this world—forces her to execute a particular rebel, and Theodosia finds a spark of rebellion of her own. I think I read this book in maybe two days. It was so fast, but it was also complicated and there was some great political intrigue, and there were so many feelings. There is actually a love triangle that I can get behind in this one. And without any spoilers, the ending is just what I wanted it to be, and more that I didn’t know I wanted but that is great. I’m really looking forward to reading the next one and to telling you more about it in my full review soon.

Finally, I reread The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje. The English Patient is about four people sheltering in an old villa in Italy at the end of World War II: a thief, a sapper, a nurse, and a patient. It switches back and forth among all their points of view, and time is pretty fluid, as the novel moves back and forth between the characters’ pasts and the present. I first read this back in 2013, as part of my senior honors reading list at Kenyon. I recall really enjoying it when I read it then, but I admit I struggled with it this time around.  I think part of the reason is that this is a slow meandering book, and maybe reading it while I was frantically cramming in some last few days of bar studying and also packing and cleaning up  my apartment just wasn’t a good move. I really wasn’t in the mindset to read a slow, meandering, complicated book. The first time I read it, I also read it in Braille, and this time I listened to the audiobook, and I wonder if that influenced my opinion too. The audiobook was fine, but I think this is a book that is better read slowly and thoughtfully than listened to while running around an apartment wielding a swiffer. Even so, by the end of the book, I was really enjoying it, and I’m really happy with the ending and the book on the whole. I hope to one day go back and reread the book in Braille, because I think I would enjoy that.

And that’s it for what I read in July. I promise I’ll be back as soon as I and start working on full reviews for these books. In the meantime, I’ve made a lot of progress unpacking in the time between I started writing this post and the time that I’m posting it, and I just have one box left to empty. Yay!