The Break is the first in a trilogy of novels by Katherena Vermette that are set in Winnipeg, Manitoba and feature a recurring cast of Métis characters. The Break is a good novel that tells a powerful story, but its frank depictions of sexual assault make this novel difficult to stomach at times.
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House of Leaves is a horror novel that was first published in 2000, but somehow I had never heard about it until recently. When I saw how absolutely bonkers the formatting of this book is, I knew I had to read it:
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The only reason I would bother to read a novel about a group of 7th century Irish monks who sail to a remote island to start their own monastery is because Emma Donoghue wrote it. Haven is a well-written story, but it is one of the most infuriating novels I have ever read. I have never wanted to reach into a novel and bitch slap a character as badly as I did while reading this book.
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Prep is Curtis Sittenfeld’s debut novel, published back in 2005. Prep is an agonizingly authentic portrait of a teenage white girl’s high school experience. Its authenticity is so remarkable that I had a hard time getting through this book because of my own painful memories of high school, but it is such a well written novel that I am glad I read it.
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I came across Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano in Indigo’s list of the Top 100 Books of the Year (it is number one on the list). Hello Beautiful is a homage to Little Women (ugh, I just love Little Women), so of course I had to read it. Do I think Hello Beautiful is the number one book of 2023? As affecting a story that it is about familial relationships, I am not impressed enough by Hello Beautiful to think it deserves top honour.
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The Vaster Wilds is Lauren Groff’s latest novel. It is a beautifully written but bleak story about a girl trying to survive on her own in the wilderness. Compared to Groff’s other novels, The Vaster Wilds is a despairing read.
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For those of you who have never heard of Anne Lister, she was a woman who lived in the early 19th century and who is known today as a very famous lesbian. She kept diaries written in code, and when the diaries were decrypted after her death, they revealed graphic details of her many lesbian relationships. I first learned of Anne Lister when I watched the BBC series Gentleman Jack, which focused on her relationship with Ann Walker, whom she “married” and was her partner until her death in 1840. Gentleman Jack is a fantastic series, and Anne Lister is a fascinating historical figure in how she openly lived an unconventional life for a woman of her time. She is what drew me to read Emma Donoghue’s latest novel, Learned by Heart, which is a fictional account of one of Anne Lister’s earliest relationships as a teenager with a girl she went to school with named Eliza Raine.
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I love Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life, so I was pretty excited when I first heard about her follow up novel, To Paradise, until I started reading the reviews on Goodreads, which criticize the novel’s lack of cohesion and even suggest that it is boring. This put me off reading it until the paperback version came out. To Paradise consists of three very loosely connected stories about love, loss and finding one’s own version of paradise, and a Washington Square townhouse. I found the first two stories to be both interesting and boring at the same time, but the third and final story is what makes To Paradise worth reading.
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I can understand why the African American classic Their Eyes Were Watching God is considered an important work of 20th century American literature. First published in 1937, it is a novel written by a Black female writer and it tells the story of a Black female protagonist, Janie, from her own perspective, at a time when stories were seldom told from the female perspective, and if they were, it was from a (white) man’s idea of the female perspective. Their Eyes Were Watching God is also mostly told in the Black vernacular, which makes Janie’s story more authentic, but also makes it a more challenging read. I am usually a speed reader, but I had to force myself to slow down while reading this novel so that I did not miss anything.
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When I first heard about Young Mungo, I thought it was going to be Shuggie Bain Version 2.0. Both novels are set in working-class neighbourhoods in Scotland in the late 20th century and both novels are about a queer boy with an alcoholic mother. However, while Shuggie Bain is by no means full of sunshine and rainbows, Young Mungo is a much darker, violent novel.
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