On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It took me a while to meet this book where it wants to be read, which I think is probably at the sentence and thematic levels, with limited concern for narrative. That’s tough for me when a book is sold as a novel, but On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous demands such attention that I let go of my own need for the trappings of fiction relatively easily. I wouldn’t want it to be a longer book, but it sure was a nice way to spend some time.

Ocean takes a personal, deep look at ethnicity, sexuality, addiction, and the relationships between parents and their children, as well as the rippled trauma of the War across generations. It’s no small task, and the approach is spare and unflinching.

There are buckets of gorgeous, quotable sentences here, but how I loved, among others, this: “And what do you do to a boy like that but turn yourself into a doorway, a place he can go through again and again, each time entering the same room?”

View all my reviews

My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Heavy, honest and good. I admire so much the complexity this book brings to assault and victim narratives, the way it aligns itself with trauma and fights against the conclusions we want to draw when we hear that words. Also, I like books set in Maine.

View all my reviews

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A really fun read! “The voice of the convenience store won’t stop flowing through me. I was born to hear this voice.”

And, “Think of me like an animal. A convenience store animal. I can’t betray my instinct.”

A little camp, a lotta cynicism, very likable flawed protagonist and a highly original setting, the central conflict is avoiding getting nagged by society failing to squish into its narrow confines. Recommend.

View all my reviews

Postcards from Here by Penny Guisinger
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Perhaps because the “here” is some ways adjacent to my own “here,” and perhaps because these vignettes are thoughtful and bright with fresh language and a mellow way of seeing, “Postcards from Here” is a good one.

View all my reviews

Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A staggeringly honest memoir, MEN WE REAPED feels like a book to revisit year after year. Somehow Ward owns a story that, while specifically hers, illuminates our shared humanity, but also gently reminds readers that the nagging, relentless grief of growing up Black and poor in the American south is by design.

View all my reviews

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This might be my year of Jane Austen. What a delightfully clever novel full of surprises! Austen’s mastery of the direct address for satire is just mesmerizing.

View all my reviews

Eligible : A Modern Retelling of Pride & Prejudice by Curtis Sittenfeld
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Completely fun and engrossing, also a smart eye on the world. At 500+ pages, I wanted a sequel immediately ion completion.

View all my reviews

Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Completely unexpected and delightful, this is an incredibly informative read. So much I didn’t understand about apartheid. There are funny moments, but this isn't a funny book. And while it's a memoir, it skips the self-absorption and (more kindly) much of the self-reflection of the genre. It's written so that people can know more, and successfully so.

View all my reviews