Books, books, and more books

 2020 is a year we won't forget anytime soon. For me, it started off the best of ways-- I was a reading machine. I could not stop reading. I read 61 books with 23 finished by March 13th. Once the lockdown started, my reading slowed to a crawl. I've set a larger goal for 2021-- 70 is a nice number we'll see. Enjoy these reviews, look for a new one next week! 

I started the year with the amazing, bizarre, and truly wonderful Dig by A.S. King. Dutton Books for Young Readers, 2019.

This book is utterly unforgettable, I feel like it has taken root inside me. What do The Shoveler, the Freak, CanIHelpYou?, Loretta the Flea-Circus Ring Mistress, and First Class Malcolm have to do with each other? These five teens are connected by blood yet they don't know it. Their family secrets have scattered them. These characters are all misfits and the strain of family complications keeps them in their place as outsiders. 

This book is the perfect blend of weirdness, deep pain, perseverance, and the connection that brings them all together. To tell you more would be to ruin it - trust me, it will be a book you will not forget; this one leaves a mark. 

The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn, William Morrow, 2019. 

If you love a mystery/thriller with an unreliable narrator this one is for you. This debut novel by Finn (aka: Dan Mallory) is somewhat similar to The Girl on the Train and is equally engaging. In this case, the woman in the window is Anna Fox, a child psychologist. She suffers from agoraphobia and is completely housebound. She spends her long, lonely days counseling other agoraphobes on the internet, looking out her window, and drinking far too much wine. One day, she sees a woman attacked in the house across the street. But, no one believes her... This one is twisty and devastating at turns. The movie starring Amy Adams will finally come out on Netflix this year. 

The Topeka School by Ben Lerner; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019. 

This one took me two full weeks to read--what a slog. A friend and I talked about it and she said the only thing she found interesting was how much of the book was from Lerner's own life than the novel itself. The characters were largely unlikeable and it all was very disjointed. 

Sadie by Courtney Summers, Wednesdays Books, 2018. 

This was my 6th read of 2020. Boy was it a wild one! This one takes two of my favorites and mashes them up spectacularly; true-crime podcast + mystery = a real page-turner. 

This novel features two sisters- Sadie (19) and her little sister Mattie (13) both born to their drug addict mother, Claire. Sadie devoted her life to raising Mattie-- her love for Mattie is a driving force in her life. When Mattie is murdered, something snaps in Sadie. She is now on a dangerous quest to find her sister's murderer and kill him. Their grandmother enlists the help of a radio host, and eventually, a serialized podcast is started as they attempt to save Sadie. 

This book is powerful and shows us just how horrifying the monsters in real-life are always scarier than those in fiction. Thankfully, these are fictional monsters but are all too real. This book doesn't leave you; this book features multiple triggers (pedophilia, child sexual abuse, and parental neglect. 

Bonus feature: the podcast is available online and gives readers another opportunity to feel this one in a powerful way. The podcast is the transcript lifted from the book. It's a fine addition/experience for this title. 

That's it for now-- I'm reading the much-lauded, Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker. This one is nonfiction which isn't my usual read, but Barack Obama had it on his Best of 2020 list. It's terrifying what families do to each other and how shame can break a person down. It shows how the stigma of mental health issues prevents proper care and absolutely plays a part in the dysfunctionality that is the Galvan family. Of the 12 children born in the 1960's, all 10 boys were mentally ill, most with schizophrenia. 

My next title will be fiction, that's a haven for me. The world today is more than real enough for me these days.