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Category: Fiction

The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus by Emma Knight

The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus by Emma Knight

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When I first saw The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus, I thought, Another book about an octopus?? Are octopuses a thing now?? (Remember, I read Shelby Van Pelt’s Remarkably Bright Creatures not too long ago). The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus is NOT about an octopus, and I knew that when I started reading this novel, but I spent the entire time while reading wondering if an octopus was going to make an appearance. It isn’t until page 326 of 368 that you learn what the title is about. Still, this novel wasn’t quite what I thought it was going to be, I think because I did not pay that much attention to the synopsis. I thought it was going to be a mystery story about uncovering family secrets, but there is a lot more to it than that.

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This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub

This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub

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There is an author’s note at the end of This Time Tomorrow in which Emma Straub explains how the inspiration for this novel came from her relationship with her own father. At the end of the author’s note she writes, “I hope that you enjoyed the book and that it made you cry.” I did enjoy This Time Tomorrow, but it did not make me cry, which made me realize how much I do not relate to the protagonist of this story.

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The Bookbinder by Pip Williams

The Bookbinder by Pip Williams

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Like Pip Williams’s first novel, The Dictionary of Lost Words, The Bookbinder is great for fans of historical fiction. You should definitely read it if you have read The Dictionary of Lost Words. The Bookbinder is also set in Oxford during the early twentieth century and focuses on the suffrage movement in England and WWI. Some characters from The Dictionary of Lost Words make an appearance in this novel.

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Like Mother, Like Mother by Susan Rieger

Like Mother, Like Mother by Susan Rieger

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For the first third of Susan Rieger’s Like Mother, Like Mother, I thought, this book is fun and entertaining, which feels like a weird thing to think about a novel that is about generational trauma. But then the story took a shift in tone that felt inauthentic to me, and I ended up feeling cynical towards this novel.

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All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker

All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker

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2025 is off to a good start in terms of my reading. Chris Whitaker’s All the Colors of the Dark is a very slow-burn story about missing girls and a serial killer. Some people might not like how slowly the story moves along, but I think this novel is great and I spent a lazy Sunday afternoon powering through this book to its satisfying conclusion.

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Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

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George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo is a well-received, Man Booker Prize winning novel about the death of Abraham Lincoln’s beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, and how Willie ends up in the bardo between life and death. It sounds like an interesting read, but I wish I had taken a moment to flip through the pages before buying this book because I do not like how it was written.

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The Lightning Bottles by Marissa Stapley

The Lightning Bottles by Marissa Stapley

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After reading Richard Powers’ The Overstory, I needed something less heavy to read, so I thought Marissa Stapley’s The Lightning Bottles would do the trick, however, it ended up getting me riled up about society’s internalized misogyny. The Lightning Bottles is specifically about misogyny in the music industry, but I think it is a good book for music lovers, particularly if you have an appreciation for the Seattle grunge scene of the 1990s.

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The Overstory by Richard Powers

The Overstory by Richard Powers

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The Overstory is the second novel of Richard Powers’ that I have read, the first being Bewilderment. The Overstory is a Pulitzer Prize winning novel that was Powers’ last novel before he published Bewilderment, and both novels have a common theme of human destruction of the natural environment. The Overstory is a dense novel that even I found to be a bit much, I think because it presents a lot of hard truths about how unappreciative humanity is of this amazing, beautiful world that we live in, and how our main character energy has resulted in the mass destruction of other lives that share this planet with us.

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