Recent Reads

As promised, I have a bunch of book reviews to share with you today -- there were really too many for Wednesday's post! And in fact I've even finished another book since Wednesday, so it was as well that I waited. Most of these books were really good, but as you'll see, they can't all be five stars.

I've been going through a lot of audiobooks lately (in fact I used all of my allotted borrows from Hoopla for the first time ever in August, all of them on audiobooks). One of those was The Briar Club, the most recent work of historical fiction from Kate Quinn. I've enjoyed her books in the past and knew I could follow one on audio, so I decided to give it a try. This one is set in a boarding house in Washington, D.C., in the early 1950s, at the height of McCarthy and HUAC and the Red Scare. As is typical of Quinn's historical novels, it's told from multiple points of view and from predominantly female characters. It's clear that all the women living in this house have their secrets, and as they take over the story, we learn some (but not all) of them. We also know that the story takes place over the course of several years and that there's been a murder at the conclusion, but it takes us most of the novel before we learn who has died, how, and why. Overall, I found it to be entertaining and something that kept my attention while I ran, cleaned, folded laundry, etc. But I don't think this is the best of Quinn's novels; I didn't quite figure out the twist at the end, but I came close, and generally I thought it was all a bit implausible and tied up a little too neatly at the end. I gave it 3 stars.

Next was a memoir that Mary put on my radar. My Good Bright Wolf has an unusual structure, most notably including a commentary (an inner critic?) that pops up from time to time to refute the author's claims. While the book largely chronicle's the author's struggles with an eating disorder and mental health, it also addresses how society has largely discounted women's suffering even as it has placed entirely unreasonable expectations for their behavior and appearance. There's some difficult stuff here, but it's beautifully written. The narration is also really well done. You'd think those critical asides would be difficult to convey on audio (I would imagine there is some treatment of the font in the print book to set them apart), but the tone and voice is just different enough to be subtle yet effective. (Incidentally, if the reader sounds familiar and, like me, you're a fan of PBS and Masterpiece, you might recognize her as the actress who played Amanda on the first few seasons of Grantchester.) While I found some of this book really difficult to listen to, I can't deny that it's very well done. I gave it 5 stars and would recommend it, unless the subject matter would be difficult for you.

Don't let the slightly creepy cover of Loved and Missed put you off -- this is a beautiful, though sad, short novel about mothers and daughters. Ruth is a middle-aged woman who is somewhat estranged from her daughter, Eleanor, due to the daughter's addiction. Ruth continually tries to help Eleanor -- with food, with money, with offers of help -- to no avail. But when Eleanor has her own daughter, and it's clear that she's in no shape to take care of her, Ruth steps in as a surrogate mother to her granddaughter, Lily. The novel follows them through the years, as Ruth continues reaching out to Eleanor to no avail and as Lily learns that Ruth is more her mother than Eleanor. Ruth never gives up on Eleanor, but in her relationship with Lily, there is some redemption. It's sad and lovely and a beautiful reflection on mothers and daughters. I gave it 5 stars as well.

In February 2021, outside the country house where she went to escape London during the early days of the pandemic, Chloe Dalton came across a leveret, a newborn hare. She took steps to rescue it and keep it alive, even though the experts she consulted told her it was likely a lost cause, and against all odds it survived, living alongside her and inspiring her to learn more not only about hares but about many other native species and the impact humans have had on them. Raising Hare is her account of what it was like to rescue the hare and help it survive without trying to tame it, her observations of the behaviors and proclivities of the hare, and her attempts to have as little impact as possible on the hare's life. I found it to be charming and a good reminder of one of the few positives of those early pandemic days: the appreciation of and respect for nature that I felt when I walked to try to dissipate some of my anxiety. I gave it 4 stars.

I wanted to read Soldier Sailor last year, when it was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for fiction, but my library didn't have it at the time and I forgot about it until I was scrolling through available audiobooks and came across it. And I am so glad I did. It's been 16 years since I was a new mother with an infant, but it all came racing back: the constant worry, the feeling of being alone in doing everything, the resentment that your partner gets to go to work, the utter exhaustion. It's a novel but feels like it could be a memoir because it's so true to life and so well illustrates how mothers are expected to do it all -- care for children, cook and clean, have careers, and keep their sanity on top of it all. I expect every mother who has read this would feel the same. I gave it 5 stars.

Finally, my least favorite of the week was Audition, from this year's Booker Prize longlist. You may remember that I read two of Katie Kitamura's previous novels earlier in the summer, and that was partially so I'd be familiar with her style when my hold came up for this new one. I've made my peace with her run-on sentences and comma splices (they still irk me, but I get that that's her style), but I think her books just aren't for me. This novel is presented in two parts, almost like two entirely different novels that just happen to have the same cast of characters. The story is told in the first person by a main character who remains nameless, though we know she's an actress and is not white (there are references to her racial background, though it's never made explicitly clear what it is), and both parts center her relationships with others. In the first part, she is in the rehearsal stage of a play when she's approached by a 20-something young man who believes, based on an interview she gave years ago, that he might be her son, and their meetings, she realizes, might be seen by an outsider as romantic in nature. In the second part, he is her son and is coming home to live with her and her husband again for a bit. I could appreciate the writing (minus the comma splices), but ultimately I felt that I just didn't get this book. When I finished, I felt that I just wasn't smart enough to appreciate it or had missed something major that would bring it all together; based on some of the reviews I read, I am not alone. I gave it 3 stars.

So this week was a mixed bag, but three 5-star reads in one week is practically unheard of for me! Have you read any of these? If so, what did you think?

I hope that my weekend includes time to finish at least one more book, and I hope yours includes time for whatever brings you joy!