Books Read in 2020

Flowers in the Attic - VC Andrews

Petals on the Wind - VC Andrews

And Still I Rise - Maya Angelou

Proof - David Auburn

I'm Still Here - Austin Channing Brown

Piece of Cake - Cupcake Brown

When No One Is Watching - Alyssa Cole

In at the Deep End - Kate Davies

All the Light We Cannot See - Anthony Doerr

Dear Evan Hanson - Val Emmich

The Vagina Monologues - Eve Ensler

This Is How It Always Is - Laurie Frankel

Freedom - Jonathan Franzen

A Million Little Pieces - James Frey

There Are Things I Want You to Know (About Stieg Larrson and Me) - Eva Gabrielsson

American Gods - Neil Gaiman

Cold Cold Heart - Tami Hoag

Wow, No Thank You - Samantha Irby

Daisy Jones and the Six - Tara Jenkins Reid

The Sun and Her Flowers - Rupi Kaur

Ask Again, Yes - Mary Beth Keane

The Outsider - Stephen King

Revival - Stephen King

Orphan Train - Christina Baker Kline

The Blue Shoe - Anne Lamott

The Preservationist - David Maine

Carry On, Warrior - Glennon Doyle Melton

The Last House Guest - Megan Miranda

What Alice Forgot - Liane Moriarty

My Year of Rest and Relaxation - Ottessa Moshfegh

Sweat - Lynn Nottage

The Book with No Pictures - BJ Novak

Yours 'Till Niagra Falls, Abby - Jane O'Connor

Topics of Conversation - Miranda Popkey

Grief Is the Thing with Feathers - Max Porter

High School - Tegan & Sara Quin

Dog Sees God - Bert V. Royal

Look Again - Lisa Scottoline

Calypso - David Sedaris

We Need to Talk About Kevin - Lionel Shriver 

More Happy Than Not - Adam Silvera 

Never Let You Go - Chevy Stevens

Sing, Unburied, Sing - Jessamyn Ward

The Death of Mrs. Westaway - Ruth Ware

Nothing to See Here - Kevin Wilson

Red at the Bone - Jacqueline Woodson

Ghosted by Rosie Walsh

The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware

Calling Me Home by Julie Kibler

The Year We Left Home by Jean Thompson

As this was a National Book Award Finalist, I read a review of this one that made it seem like our bookclub would love it. We didn't. Very similar to Bent Road...to the point that a few months later we had a conversation where we all tried to recall which characters were from which book. Middle-America-family-drama type stuff here. Good for passing the time, but not the Irving/Cunningham-caliber of writing that I was expecting. Apparently, these particular quotes and excerpts stirred something in me at one point...

"The individual and the state, the individual as unwilling participant in the state. The self existed among the great confusion of other selves, each of us, all of us, the cells in the body politic. The political animal. A shuffling, shambling, bearlike creature, sometimes lurching forward, at other times gnawing and swatting at its own troubled innards."

"It wasn't fair. Maybe when you were a child, or for a little while longer, you thought that as soon as you pointed unfairness out, a swift and righteous justice would prevail."

"He didn't feel like dredging it up, explaining. How naive he'd been, naive being a nicer way of saying dumb, to think that ideas could protect you from the world's catastrophes, or from cruelty or unfairness or your own vanity."

"...It was better when the church was crowded and they had to sit in the balcony, where you could at least look down on people and imagine yourself parachuting on top of them. ...nothing you could do to keep from being eaten up and digested by your boredom. ...he didn't know why they weren't all embarrassed. Everything about church was profoundly embarrissing to him, as if religion was something that only took place in the most unnatural circumstantces."

Bent Road by Lori Roy

The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney

Persuasion by Jane Austen

Guess what? I don't like Jane Austen. Never have. As a college sophomore, I was convinced that I would love her and attempted to write a paper on Pride & Predjudice. Much like that paper, I never finished the book. I tried. Several times. Ditto Persuasion, which was chosen for my book club. During the second attempt, I realized I should just give up when I read 4 pages before I realized that I had read them the day before. (This almost 100 pages in-gack!)

I could go on about how I think she spends to much time on exposition and she has no gift for dialogue, or how it completely infuriates and baffles me as to why she constantly switches how she refers to the main characters....But if I did that, I might offend you. Which I did to a complete stranger at Pablo's as I was venting about this book to my friend Jess. I'm still not over it. Oh, wait. Totally over it.

Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice by Janet Malcolm

What Malcolm has given us is equal parts history of Stein and Toklas' relationship and an astute criticism of Stein's work. How two Jewish lesbians survived living in Europe during the 30s and 40s is one the larger question posed. Essentially, they moved to the French countryside and rarely spoke of their religious heritage. Evaded the issue, even.

I've long been enchanted with Stein, her brother Leo and their unique brand of living at 27 Rue de Fleurus. The company they kept during the 20s is a veritable who's who, but Malcolm wholly ignores this, aside from a brief mention of Hemingway. The focus is truly on the escape from Nazi terror and the process by which Stein wrote.

Malcolm is seemingly not a huge fan of Gertrude, but she thoroughly investigates her library and fairly sheds light on one of my favorite writers. If you've read my review of the play Gertrude Stein, then you are aware of my adoration of stream-of-consciousness and her heavy repetition of words. I'll spare you a litany of quotes, but share some of how Malcolm classifies the writing.

"This is truly a new way of writing a novel, a novel where the author withholds the characters from the reader. ...The characters resemble shades."

"When she uses a new word it is like the entrance of a new character."

"She refuses to see things clearly that can only be seen darkly."

"Although it is possible to finish, it is impossible to sum up."

Sylvia and Ted by Emma Tennant

Being that Plath is one of my favorite authors, I picked this for our book club. Being that I've read all of Sylvia's journals, I borderline detested this book.

Always seeming to try too hard, making too many metaphors by using too many symbols....always an octave above or below what I know Plath would do herself.

Therefore, this will be short: If you're attempting to account for the lives of two of the most beloved writers on either side of the pond, make sure it'll be worthy of the tastes you know your audience will have.

The Blue Parakeet by Scot McKnight

Lest I be my snarky self when it comes to "Christian" writings, I'm pasting the Publishers' Weekly review from Amazon here:

"Infused with common sense and seasoned with candor, the latest work from McKnight (The Jesus Creed), religious studies professor at North Park College, takes a stand in controversial territory by bravely asking the question: how is it that even Christians who claim to be led by an authoritative Bible read it so differently? In response, the author asserts that believers need to take a fresh look at how they adopt and adapt Scripture before they can read the Bible in a way that renews a living relationship with the God behind the sacred text. Using the analogy of a water slide, McKnight argues that the Gospel is the slide, the Bible and church tradition the walls that both protect and liberate the believer as he or she discerns how to apply Scripture as a living document. In the last section, McKnight tackles the controversial issue of women's role in church ministry in a way that is both scholarly and confessional, documenting his own journey alongside that of the apostle Paul and other biblical characters. Enriched by folksy anecdotes, this volume could be very useful for evangelical readers and any others wanting a safe place to ask the same bold questions."

Given my love of discussion, this was an experiment in pushing myself to read things that I've not as of late. A group of 5 embarked upon a book club of sorts for this one, and we read it over the course of 4 months. The group included 2 of my closest friends, one newer acquaintance, and one of my roommates at the time. It should be mentioned that 4 of us had at one time or another been on staff or volunteered for the same youth program at a church that we were all still at least loosely affiliated. Always for adding another layer to relationships and thinking, I was excited to enter into this endeavor.

This situation allowed for many questions to be entertained, and many long held assumptions to be challenged. There were many moments of discord, and Scot-with-one-t held his own while withholding his blunt opinions to the point of never really knowing what he was urging you to think. While that sounds gracious enough, it was hard to walk away with anything more than a swirl of unanswered questions. However, it did open up the ground for analyzing things with a fresh perspective.

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

What to say about Olive? Here we have a character who isn't very likable, nor sympathetic, but I found myself identifying with her, liking her, and having a great deal of empathy for her. Her life, her situations, her surroundings.

Strout tells the tale of Olive Kitteridge using vignettes, each chapter sketches a story that, while building part of a larger whole, can stand alone. While I doubted it's effectiveness (and was quite irritated) when I realized that Chapter Two wasn't necessarily connected to the first, I quickly became engaged with each portion of the book. To the point of being riveted. I journaled about this book. I read it aloud to both of my roommates (two separate passages at two separate times), and we had heartfelt and meaningful discussions as a result.

Olive and the people who populate the town of Crosby, Maine live very mundane and commonplace small-town lives. It's just that that makes their experience, and this book, remarkable.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

This book had long been on my list after word of mouth (or should I say word of blog/facebook) from several people who actually have taste in literature. So I suggested it for my book club. Twice. The second time it was finally added to our rotation. I preface with that simply to indicate exactly how long I had wanted to read this book.

I finally sat down to read it at the beginning of February (yes, it's currently August) and stopped reading at page 36. Why? Here you have one of the protagonists, Renee, who is a bitter concierge, resigned to her "post" in life regardless of (or perhaps in spite of) her extreme intelligence. She was dealt a bad hand and then let that hand chafe her raw. Early in the book the reader sees her depression, which appears to be cyclical with her resentment of society and the structures imposed upon her by it. Which all just hit a bit too close to home for this reader. A woman not fulfilling her potential in life? Gack. So I put it down for what I had intended to be a week(ish), or until my headspace could handle seeing the (extended foreign version of) my own failures in print. Then my grandfather died and that week(ish) turned into a few months. I'm not exactly sure when I finished the book, but there are show bills from late April tucked into page 275.

Needless to say, I can understand why the aforementioned folks reveled in this book. At points I did as well, but the majority of my reading felt like an assignment. It was the kind of book I love to love, but in actuality I didn't even consistently like the book. There are brilliant passages that resonated with me and my experiences, but there were also some that struck a heavy hand of discord. I've spent my last 3 years working in a Title I school during the mornings and then nannying for a family who sends their kids to the poshest private day schools around in the afternoon. My everyday experiences with kids are as varied as their ages (4-18).

The second protagonist here, Paloma, is a 12-year old girl. Paloma is a savant, to be sure, but she still isn't convincing as an adolescent. That was a distraction for me. It wasn't until a noticeable shift in her narration (well into the later third of the book) that I figured out why I was struggling with the text. Being translated from the French, I did enjoy the phrasing, which led to my own near-constant thought about grammar, spelling, and punctuation....but I'm a megadork when it comes to that.

Although I'm not glowing about this one, I'd still recommend it to any true reader. It sounds as if I'm selling it short, which will be contradictory when I post umpteen passages from it....elitist and hypocritical. Yup, that's me.

Eating by Jason Epstein

Let's be honest: I didn't love this book. It's a memoir, which I do love. Jason Epstein was the editorial director at Random House for 40 years. He was responsible for the publication of authors like Nabokov, Doctorow, Mailer, Philip Roth and Gore Vidal. Fantastic. Except here he barely talks about any of that. Jason Epstein loves to cook, loves to eat, and loves the memories associated with certain foods. Awesome. Except here half the book is storytelling, the other half is recipes. The basic premise of the book is that Epstein believes in cooking as storytelling. So the recipes are told as if spoken to a friend, with no exact measurements. For someone who doesn't cook often or experiment much beyond what has worked before, this is not stimulating. I found myself throughout the book thinking of people in my life who would love this book.

There were a few bright spots. The early chapters that correspond with Epstein's childhood and young adult years in the Mid-Atlantic do evoke a sense of whimsy. I also wrote a few worthy quotes in my journal, which I'll share below. I don't discount this book, I only discount it for an untalented and uninspired (un)chef like myself.

"Without books you would not know who you are or where you came from or where you might be going."

"Perhaps my New York neighborhood with its multitudinous temptations is at fault. But I chose to live here. There is no escaping one's self."

Woman Behind the New Deal by Kirstin Downey

Ever heard of Frances Perkins? I won't judge you, because I hadn't either.

When I heard that this was one of my book clubs' picks, I was immediately excited. I've had many conversations (heated debates, honestly) about FDR and all things that resulted from the New Deal. There's a mural in my hometown that was done with CCC funds, and my grandfather served in the Corps. I was less excited when I realized that this historical biography is 400 pages long. Ugh.

So again: heard of Frances Perkins? She was the first female to ever be appointed to the U.S. Cabinet, serving as Roosevelt's Secretary of Labor for his entire presidency. Perkins was the progressive force behind FDR, and often served as his conscience. Under her persuasion, the CCC and the Public Works Administration were born. Oh, and a little thing called the Social Security Act? With it, she created welfare, pensions and unemployment. She also established the first child labor laws, the 40-hour work week and overtime law. Given that she fought tirelessly for these things and labor unions, I'm surprised that my dad hasn't lectured me on Frances Perkins for the last 30 years. Wait, in the American public school system we learn about Betsy Ross and how she sewed a flag.

Pleasantly surprised at how this biography read more like a novel, I was engrossed and fascinated in the way the Frances' life unfolded. Her personal life, while held immensely private, was less than ideal. Raised in priveledge, she shunned her affluence, but used her connections to her advantage later in life. Constantly aware that people of influence could (and would) eventually help the plight of the less fortunate, she was saavy and sharp in maintaining relationships while carving her own path in social work.

This book made me think. It is almost unimaginable how this woman dealt with the glass ceiling in the 30s and 40s. Frances Perkins maintained a career and a family...and changed the future for millions.