acotar – Catherine Thoms

A burst of hopeful color

January in Review — Lit Chat Vol. 23

Pyramid of book cover images with Orbital by Samantha Harvey on the top, The Writing Life by Annie Dillard and Wednesday's Child by Yiyun Li in the middle, and The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas, and Conclave by Robert Harris on the bottom.

Hi friends,

At the first Reading Club meeting of 2025 a few weeks ago, I asked everyone to come ready to chat about their reading goals for the year. These included setting and reaching a Goodreads goal, reading more widely in specific genres, using the library more, and falling back in love with reading. It was delightful and inspiring.

I asked because one of my goals for 2025 is to be more intentional about what I read. I’ve always been more of a vibey reader, choosing whatever sounds good to me in the moment based on the weather, whatever else is going on in my life, or what people on the Internet are talking about. This year, though, I’m trying to treat my reading as part of a self-imposed curriculum, of sorts. A soft syllabus, if you will. As such, some of my reading goals for the year are:

read 6 poetry collections
read 6 short story collections
read 6 craft/writing books
read 4 books in translation
read Emily Wilson’s translation of The Iliad, which I bought last year in gorgeous expensive hardcover because it was signed and gorgeous
read In Search of Lost Time (Proust book club, anyone??? serious inquiries only)

Last year, I read 53 books. So if I hit all of these, that’s about half of my average annual reading, which means there’s still plenty of time left for vibes. I’m hoping that being more intentional about mixing up my reading from my typical diet of contemporary fiction will add more depth and breadth to my intellectual life and help me to be a more well-rounded reader, writer, and thinker.

Still from Severance: Mr. Milchick reading The You You Are — me, a more well-rounded reader, writer, and thinker

January was a strong start, and I’ve already crossed two books off my soft syllabus! Before we dive in, a reminder as always that you can get this directly in your inbox by subscribing to my Substack.

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Okay moving on! Let’s take a look at January:

THE FOUNDATION:

The Hobbit — J.R.R. Tolkien, narrated by Nicol Williamson

Phillip found a retired library copy of The Hobbit on vinyl a few years ago, which is an abridged version from 1974 narrated by British actor Nicol Williamson. We put this on while working on a 3,000 piece puzzle of a fantasy scene over the long weekend, and honestly, it slapped. In lieu of a Bookshop page, I’ve linked to the first hour on YouTube.

3,000 piece puzzle of a fantasy scene, with a rider on horseback at the base of a mountain path to a castle with dragons in the air and a sea monster in the water. — in all her glory

Williamson’s narration was accompanied by a score of medieval-inspired music, which perfectly complemented our heroes’ journey and all the quirky little voices he did for each character. I’d read the full-length book as a kid and remembered very little, so this abridged version was perfect for hitting the highlights while my brain stayed busy doing something crafty. 10/10 a lovely way to spend a long weekend.

A Court of Silver Flames — Sarah J. Maas

At this point, I’ve accepted the fact that I will most likely devour all of Maas’s books within the next year or so. While not my favorite of the ACOTAR series, I came to appreciate the change in perspective for this latest installment: told from Nesta’s POV instead of Feyre’s, ACOSF centers Nesta working through her trauma from the war with Hybern by training her body and mind. This is definitely the smuttiest book of the series, which would be totally fine if it weren’t almost 800 (!!) pages. Like, girl, at a certain point (past 300 pages), we simply need to get out of bed and go fight the evil queen for the sake of moving this damn plot along. I should note that this lack of momentum did not keep me from devouring all ~800 pages—for the plot, obviously.

Conclave — Robert Harris

This was another audiobook I listened to while working on the giant puzzle (I got AirPods for Christmas and am into audiobooks again, in case you were wondering), and I found it surprisingly riveting! I have not yet seen the movie, but from what I’ve heard, it’s more or less a faithful adaptation (pun absolutely intended). Having been raised Catholic, there will always be a part of me that finds the mystery and pageantry of the Vatican absolutely fascinating, and what better environment to put it on display than the papal conclave? It’s the perfect microcosm for examining the mortal experiences of ambition, doubt, and faith under one divine and historic roof. Like everyone, I have some thoughts on the ending, but all in all, would recommend listening as a backdrop to another manual project like a puzzle or folding laundry.

SOLID SUPPORTS:

Book covers for The Writing Life by Annie Dillard and Wednesday's Child by Yiyun Li

The Writing Life — Annie Dillard

Kicking off my 2025 goal to read more craft books, I started the year with The Writing Life, which was a gift from my sweet friend El. I think I come to every book about writing with a secret hope that I will find all the answers to all my problems inside, which is never the case but it is always a step in the right direction. I was actually introduced to Dillard not through her own writing, but through a chapter in Alexander Chee’s How to Write an Autobiographical Novel, in which he recounts being one of her students at Wesleyan University.

Dillard comes across just as sharp, funny, and wise in her own book as she does in Chee’s memory. The Writing Life is both prescriptive and illustrative: she not only delivers the essentials of living a writerly life—e.g., the importance of carving out time and space for your work every day, and of not hoarding your best material for later—but also uses her own routines and experiences as an example. This book has found a place on my esteemed over-the-desk bookshelf of favorites, and I’m inclined to follow in El’s footsteps and pick up the next copy I see out in the world so I have an extra on hand to give to a friend who needs it.

Wednesday’s Child — Yiyun Li

Another gift, and another story collection to cross off my 2025 list! Wednesday’s Child was a holiday gift from the lovely Nina, after I mentioned how much I’d enjoyed Li’s 2022 novel, The Book of Goose. The stories from this collection were sourced from over a decade of published short fiction, all of which center Asian or Asian-American main characters grappling with themes of love and loss, the passage of time, and the conflicting desires of wanting to live a memorable life versus a life that leaves no trace. One poignant, recurring subject was grief over the death of a child by suicide, which I learned later is something that Li has tragically experienced firsthand.

Knowing that this collection draws from over a decade of writing made the recurring themes that much more striking, as a testimony to the emotions that cut a writer deeply enough to want to continue exploring them through multiple different characters and situations throughout her life. The significant absences and the lingering impact of past decisions color the way the stories are both written and received; even when they’re not the main focus, you feel their impact in the intensity of brief, tender moments that burst through the characters’ otherwise unsentimental lives. Li also has a knack for writing last lines that hit you right in the gut, ensuring you stay thinking about even the shortest stories for long after you’ve finished.

THE TIPPY TOP:

Book cover image for Orbital by Samantha Harvey

Orbital — Samantha Harvey

Gorgeous cover aside, I found this book’s depiction of astronauts orbiting the Earth just as mesmerizing as their descriptions of looking down at our planet from two hundred and fifty miles into space. Orbital profiles six astronauts from all over the world, living and working on the International Space Station. In one of their waking days, they orbit the Earth sixteen times, which poses fascinating questions about the passage of time and the distance between themselves and the lives they left behind. During their time in space, the characters grieve family members and relationships, monitor the growth of a major storm system, struggle to maintain communications with loved ones and the outside world, and make discoveries about what the human body and mind can withstand when so far removed from everything that gives our lives a sense of normalcy, comfort, and belonging.

One of my longer-running childhood aspirations was to become an astronaut (somehow, that was my takeaway from Apollo 13??). Though this book made it abundantly clear that I could never have hacked it from a physical standpoint, if not a scientific one, there was still a tiny part of me that felt, well, jealous. It’s a little devastating to be reminded that I will most likely never experience this level of objectively awe-inspiring beauty, peace, and perspective in my lifetime, even though I have no desire to leave my friends, family, and all my earthly comforts behind for nine months at a time.

And yet, Harvey—notably, not an astronaut—conveys the emotional truth of this experience in a way that makes the unreachability of life in space accessible and unforgettable, by grounding the astronauts’ days in the physical sensations of their bodies, their familiar hungers and dreams. What struck me above all was each character’s deep gratitude and appreciation for being there, how once acclimated, they find themselves almost unable to imagine a life outside of the Space Station, in all its strangeness. This book was a special reminder of why we read: to vicariously experience what we will never experience for ourselves in this life. To watch through someone else’s eyes as the world moves from light into darkness and back into light again, all the other trivialities of humanity falling away, and to come away from this journey with extra gratitude for the lives we do lead.

That’s a wrap on January! Do you have any reading goals for the year? Any recommendations for short story or poetry collections to cross off my list? If you do, I’d love to hear it! And if you’re interested in joining us IRL for the next Reading Club meeting in March, let me know and I’ll add you to the email list.

Until next time, happy reading!
❤ Catherine

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Yoohoo, Big Summer Blow-out!

June/July/August in review — Lit Chat, Vol. 20

Pyramid of book cover images. Bottom tier: Highfire by Eoin Colfer, The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin, The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo, and A Court of Frost and Starlight by Sarah J. Maas; Third tier: Family Meal by Bryan Washington, A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J. Maas, and Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk; Second tier: The Road by Cormac McCarthy and Either/Or by Elif Batuman; Top: Catch the Rabbit by Lana Bastasic

Hi friends,

It’s September! Thank goodness. I don’t know about you, but this summer really took it out of me. Gone are the days where I could knock out the entire Lake Forest Library summer reading challenge in the span of a couple of days. From what I remember, we were supposed to log our reading in 20 or 30-minute increments, amounting to a total of maybe four hours? That was an easy rainy day for me.

This summer, free half hours have been few and far between, and most of my summer reading was concentrated into plane and train rides or rare, peaceful early mornings before the rest of the AirBnB woke up. I love the flexibility and freedom of summer, and I’m so grateful to have spent the past few months across more than half a dozen cities celebrating friends, family, love, and the joy of being in a new place with your people. That said, I’m exhausted!!! I’m so happy to have spent most of August recovering at home, and I’m so ready to start channeling some much-needed back to school energy into my September.

As you might imagine, this post is a big one! I read ten books over the months of June, July, and August, so for the first time since March 2023, we have an Honorable Mention tier as a ~blog exclusive~. If you usually prefer reading this in your inbox, though, make sure you’re subscribed to my Substack here:

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But you’re probably here on the blog for the Honorable Mentions, so let’s get right to it.

HONORABLE MENTION:

Book cover images for Highfire by Eoin Colfer, The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin, The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo, and A Court of Frost and Starlight by Sarah J. Maas

Highfire — Eoin Colfer

I grew up reading the Artemis Fowl books and was excited to read an adult book by the same author, but disappointingly, this one didn’t do much for me. Highfire is about a young Cajun boy, Squib Moreau who befriends Lord Highfire (aka Vern), the last living dragon hiding out in the Louisiana bayou. The two become unlikely allies when they unite against a rogue cop trying to expose Vern while also aggressively pursuing Squib’s single mother. It was definitely a high-energy story, but the humor was a bit crass for my taste—the kind I usually refer to as “boy humor.” However! Apparently there’s a TV adaptation in the works, with Nicolas Cage executive producing and voicing the dragon?? So you might want to check it out after all.

The Tombs of Atuan — Ursula K. Le Guin

I decided to make my way through the Earthsea books on audio as travel companions, but the narrator’s voice is so lovely to listen to that if I pop it on right as I’ve settled into my seat for an early morning flight, I’m asleep before we take off. Granted, I don’t sleep well on planes, so it’s more of a twilight half-sleep where the story kind of infuses into my dreams. I’m never quite sure how much of the story I’ve actually retained, but whenever I rewind, I’m like, “Oh, I listened to this already.” Anyway, this second book features a young priestess named Tenar, who meets an adult Ged when she catches him trying to break into her temple. Ged offers her the choice between the path she’s trained for her whole life, and the potential of a future beyond the temple’s walls. I’m still intrigued enough to want to continue listening to these books, but I think a fully awake physical re-read will produce a completely different experience someday.

The Familiar — Leigh Bardugo

Perhaps an unpopular opinion, but I’ve been a bit underwhelmed by Leigh Bardugo’s latest books! I once claimed that if anyone was well-primed to write the next fully immersive fantasy phenomenon ala Harry Potter or Game of Thrones, it would be Bardugo. And yet, I’ve found her more recent books fairly forgettable. Her latest is a historical fiction (which I usually love!) set in the time of the Spanish Inquisition. Luzia, a young servant girl, unintentionally catches the attention of the Spanish court when she’s caught performing small magics in the home of her employer. She is then thrust into the spotlight and forced to compete against other would-be magicians for a position in the royal court, with the help of her wealthy patron’s mysterious—and mysteriously enticing—familiar. I enjoyed it, but as a standalone historical fantasy novel, I didn’t find it as wholly encompassing as I think her earlier fantasy novels were.

A Court of Frost and Starlight – Sarah J. Maas

I’m still confused as to why this book is considered a novella when it’s still the length of a regular book (232 pages)? I mean, it’s not as long as the other books, but still! That’s a normal book-length! Anyway, no spoilers, but this is considered book #3.5 because it’s basically just a little filler story about Feyre and her extended family spending the holiday season in Velaris after the events of the third book conclude. It was sweet and nothing crazy happened, but as much as I enjoy this world and these characters, it also felt a little unnecessary? I’d rather just skip ahead to the next book, but I guess I’ll wait until I read that one to pass judgment on whether or not we needed this one.

THE FOUNDATION:

Cover images for Family Meal by Bryan Washington, A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J. Maas, and Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk

Family Meal — Bryan Washington

This was actually the last book I finished in August, and the first contemporary novel that I’d read in a long time—it’s been a big genre summer, as you’ve already seen! This is certainly a novel that will bring you back to the messy beauty of reality. When Cam returns home to Houston from LA after the murder of his boyfriend, he’s not expecting to move back in with his estranged childhood best friend, TJ. But TJ proves to be the lifeline Cam needs when his grief and self-destructive coping behaviors start to overwhelm, and Cam’s newfound presence might just be what TJ needs to reclaim the life he wants, too.

Family Meal is a book about grief, queerness, found family, sex, food, and the many ways our relationships with all of the above can get messed up and heal again with grace and love. This one might be a little more difficult for anyone sensitive to content about eating disorders, addiction, and self-harm, so as Washington’s opening note to the book says: “please be kind to yourself. And go at your own pace. There’s no wrong way to be, and the only right way is the way that you are.”

A Court of Wings and Ruin — Sarah J. Maas

I won’t get into plot details on this one because spoilers, but I will say it had book #5 levels of drama for only being book #3 in the series. Are these the best written books I’ve ever read in my life? Of course not. But the stakes are high, the pace is fast, the characters are hot and in love, and it was just so easy on a jet-lagged, post-work conference brain. I think book #2 is my favorite so far, but this was still a 10/10 reading experience. I’m curious to see where the story goes for book #5, especially knowing that it’s told from a different POV, but there was also enough of a resolution in this one that I feel okay with putting a pause on this series for another month or so.

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead — Olga Tokarczuk, tr. Antonia Lloyd-Jones

When one sees a Nobel-prize winner in the Vienna outpost of Shakespeare & Co., one buys it!! The narrator of this strange book is the caretaker of a small community of mostly summer homes in the mountains of a remote Polish border town. When she’s not researching her neighbors’ birth charts or translating William Blake’s poetry, she can often be found advocating for the protection of local wildlife against the town’s hunting community.

Upon discovering that one of her eccentric neighbors has choked to death on the bone of a deer he illegally poached, our narrator becomes convinced that the animals are rising up and seeking justice against humans. When two more questionable deaths occur in the neighborhood, the reader is almost inclined to believe her. Part mystery, part slow-burn thriller, this book’s atmosphere stems largely from the narrator herself: rustic and pastoral but not quite cozy, an underlying tension and the suspicion of hidden secrets prevents the reader from getting too comfortable. This would be a great book to help you ease into fall and the onset of spooky reading!

SOLID SUPPORTS:

Cover images for The Road by Cormac McCarthy and Either/Or by Elif Batuman

The Road — Cormac McCarthy

I was not expecting this one to break my heart as much as it did!! The Road came highly recommended from a work friend who had recently read McCarthy’s entire oeuvre, and suggested this one as the best entry point to his work. The Road is a devastating novel about a father’s love for his son as they journey through post-apocalyptic America, surviving not for the promise of a better future—because there isn’t one—but simply for each other.

I was most impressed by McCarthy’s stark, spare prose and no-frills dialogue, how successfully it captured not only the hellscape they traveled through but also the intense, unspoken intimacy and vulnerability between the boy and his father. We don’t know their names or their ages, don’t know what happened to the world or what their life was like before the road, but we understand their secret hopes, fears, and defiant resilience with a rare, gut-wrenching clarity. I cried at the end! That should be endorsement enough.

Either/Or — Elif Batuman

I adored this sequel to Batuman’s The Idiot as much as I adored The Idiot, and am so glad we got to see Selin grow through this next chapter of her story. Now a sophomore at Harvard in 1996, Selin is still processing the strange roller coaster of emotions that last year’s situationship with Ivan sent her on, as she searches for meaning in his actions through the books he studied and through her own course reading list.

When her summer plans bring her to Turkey as a student travel writer, Selin’s coming of age begins in earnest, her travels taking her on adventures of varying success including equally varied encounters with men. An education in culture, sex, and of course, more literature, Selin finally comes into her confidence enough to start separating herself from the influences of the friends, family, writers, and philosophers that have defined her life so far. The former English major in me loved watching Selin experience the revelations of growing up and reconciling life with literature, choosing what to keep with her and what to leave behind, all in the timeless pursuit of living a life worth writing about.

THE TIPPY TOP:

Cover image for Catch the Rabbit by Lana Bastašić

Catch the Rabbit — Lana Bastašić

My sweet friend Monique honored me by borrowing my pyramid format earlier this year to review her best books of February and March, and selected Catch the Rabbit as her top choice. Obviously, I had to check it out.

Read Monique’s original review here!

The novel, translated into English from Serbo-Croatian by the author, follows a chaotic road trip undertaken by two childhood best friends, Sara and Lejla, who have not spoken to each other in nearly a decade. The story is divided into the present moment of their road trip, driving from Bosnia to Vienna to find Lejla’s long-lost brother, and the past, in which Sara narrates anecdotes that illustrate the progression of their friendship as children and the starring role Lejla played in Sara’s life and memories.

The author nails the strange familiarity of being around people you knew in childhood now as adults, that weird intimacy of knowing someone’s essence and history so completely and yet feeling like time and physical distance have made you strangers. She also impressively captures the slipperiness of memory, the way certain defining moments can be so supercharged with emotion that it overshadows the truth, creating entirely different versions of a memory for the people who share it.

Like Monique, I finished this book and immediately wanted to dive back in knowing what I had learned throughout the course of the book—which included a lot of history about the Bosnian War that I had simply never known anything about—and reexamine both Sara’s and Lejla’s memories and motivations in a different light. No spoilers, but it’s one of the most perfect endings I’ve read in a long time. Unsettling, emotionally intense, unresolved, and yet somehow it’s completely satisfying, because you realize there was no other way that this particular journey could end. It leaves you literally wanting—not for anything specific, but trapped in a paralyzing moment of desperation: an ache of absence, with the hope of fulfillment slipping through one’s fingers.

And that’s a wrap on my summer reading! I’ll be back in October ready to go full send into spooky reads, my favorite time of the year. Until then, let me know if you want to chat about these or any other books or give me some recommendations for the fall! It’s good to be back.

Until next time, happy reading!
❤ Catherine

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Summer Reading Szn

May in Review — Lit Chat Vol. 19

pyramid of book cover images with Atomic Habits by James Clear, Anita de Monte Laughs Last by Xochitl Gonzalez, and A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin on the bottom; Hotel Splendide by Ludwig Bemelmans and The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride in the middle; A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas on top.

Hi friends,

It’s humid and sticky in Brooklyn, the cicadas are out in Chicago, and my favorite lavender lemonade is back at the Center For Fiction, which can only mean one thing: summer has officially arrived. While I do not work a job that enables me to take the summer off, spiritually, I am poolside at the Lake Forest Club eating chicken tenders and playing Bananagrams while I wait for a tennis lesson (real ones know).

This means that brainpower is at seasonal low, and since I’m also preparing for another travel-heavy summer, Lit Chat might take a lil break again in the next month or two! So if you don’t hear from me for a couple months, don’t worry, I’ll be back eventually. I’ve famously never been able to go too long without homework.

But for now, we still have the best part of summer to look forward to: summer reading! If you prefer to get this post straight to your inbox, remember to subscribe for my Substack here:

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Let’s get into it, shall we?

THE FOUNDATION:

Book cover images for Atomic Habits by James Clear, Anita de Monte Laughs Last by Xochitl Gonzalez, and A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin.

Atomic Habits — James Clear

I first put this book on hold at the library like six months ago, which checks out as that aligns with the New Year’s pressure to be a better version of myself whose routine does not consist solely of sourdough grilled cheeses and 100+ hours of Stardew Valley gameplay. By the time Atomic Habits got to me, though, I’d kicked my Stardew addiction and signed back up for ClassPass, so I was basically already a healthy habit queen. I also felt like I’d seen a lot of Clear’s tips and suggestions for habit-forming/routine creation regurgitated on TikTok already, so I didn’t get a whole lot out of the book that felt totally new to me. That said, this is still probably a solid place to start if you feel like it’s time for a lifestyle adjustment or a mental reframe, but need some help breaking that change down into more manageable pieces.

Anita de Monte Laughs Last — Xochitl Gonzalez

What intrigued me most about this novel was that I had seen it marketed as based on a true story: that of the Cuban-American artist Ana Mendieta, who died after “falling” out of the window of her 34th floor apartment in 1985. It’s apparent that Gonzalez borrowed heavily from Mendieta’s life to tell Anita de Monte’s story, as the details of Anita’s artwork and career, her tumultuous marriage to a well-known male sculptor, and her controversial death are lifted almost exactly from Mendieta’s life. I enjoyed the parallel story of a young art history student at Brown who rediscovers de Monte’s work while in a similarly difficult relationship, but I found it off-putting that the author does not properly credit or even mention Mendieta at all in the book beyond a dedication “For Ana.” For a book whose most prominent message is that women lose their power when they/their work are forgotten, something about this omission just didn’t sit right with me.

A Wizard of Earthsea — Ursula K. Le Guin

I had a couple of long flights this month and panicked when I realized the physical books I’d brought with me might prove insufficient (they did), so I downloaded the audiobook for A Wizard of Earthsea after being recommended it as a great starting place for Le Guin’s work many, many times. Audiobooks are a perfect distraction for my nerves while traveling, especially when they’re narrated by old British men who do all the voices like they’re reading me a bedtime story. At its core, A Wizard of Earthsea is a story about the power of words, a power that guides a young boy’s journey to learn enough magic to face the darkness inside of him. While I didn’t find it quite as immersive as some of the other fantasy worlds I’ve been craving lately, I do find it impressive that with its publication in 1967, Le Guin essentially managed to single-handedly rebrand the genre of fantasy as literature that could be accessible to all ages, not just kids. (Unrelated but forever relevant: Le Guin’s daily routine, which I think about probably once a day.)

SOLID SUPPORTS:

Book covers for Hotel Splendide by Ludwig Bemelmans and The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

Hotel Splendide — Ludwig Bemelmans

I read the entirety of Hotel Splendide on a flight to San Francisco, and was wholly charmed by Bemelmans’ depiction of the New York hotel scene in the 1920s. Each chapter is a vignette from Bemelmans’ time working in an upscale hotel before his Madeleine fame, and his written descriptions of the hotel’s characters somehow match his drawing style exactly: slightly caricature-esque, but drawn with such vulnerability and a flair for absurdity that they feel immediately familiar and beloved.

What delighted me just as much as the truly ridiculous cast of characters (eccentric employees and neurotic guests alike) was the attention to detail and finery that just feels like it doesn’t exist anymore, or maybe only exists outside my tax bracket. The Hotel Splendide’s scrupulous commitment to five-star service was a sharp contrast to the sterility of my Hilton stay, where I checked myself in and out on my phone and the only time I spoke to someone was when the buffet attendant told me breakfast would be a flat $34. If given a choice between the two, I know where I’d rather stay.

The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store — James McBride

I read James McBride’s Deacon King Kong back in January 2023 and deeply admired the way he managed to portray the vibrancy of whole communities as richly as singular characters, weaving their stories together across decades and generations. McBride pulls off a similar feat in this novel, when the fates of the Jewish immigrant and African American communities living side by side in Chicken Hill, Pennsylvania in the 1930s become intertwined over the fate of a young deaf Black boy.

The story primarily follows the lives of Moshe and Chona, a Jewish couple who run the town’s dance hall and grocery store, respectively, and their Black hired helpers, Nate and Addie. When Nate and Addie’s nephew Dodo is delivered into an abusive mental institution at the hands of the town doctor, a vindictive KKK leader who resents the changes that decades of immigration have brought to Chicken Hill, it will take the entire community to bring Dodo to safety again. Each character has a role to play and a life as vividly realized as the next, all done with McBride’s signature humor, compassion, and empathy. The book begins and ends with a skeleton in a well, but this mystery takes a backseat to the daily dramas and intimacies of life in this uniquely engaging community.

THE TIPPY TOP:

Book cover for A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas

A Court of Mist and Fury — Sarah J. Maas

Listen! Listen. No one was a more reluctant Sarah J. Maas convert than me, for no real reason except I saw “faeries” spelled like that and was like, “Ugh, another one of those? Do we need this?” The answer was yes, yes we do need this. After flying through ACOTAR last month, the next obvious choice was to fly through this sequel, which simply had all of the things I love to read about when I don’t feel like using my brain too much. We have enemies to lovers, magical strength training, a brooding, misunderstood hero, and a particularly delicious will-they-won’t-they-ohmygodjustdoitalready situation. And on top of that, there’s actually some pretty impressive worldbuilding going on!

No spoilers, but I love whenever fantasy books expand beyond the first glimpse of the world they give you in Book 1 (the Spring Court/Under the Mountain) to deliver a whole extended universe to accompany the smut (more Courts and new characters!), complete with history, lore, and most importantly, a danger strong enough to threaten everything we’ve fought for so far. Brb, praying my Libby app will deliver Book 3 ASAP before I forget everything that happened in Book 2.

That’s all for now! Signing off to focus on my summer reading (and lounging, mostly lounging), but if you ever want to chat about these or other books, you know where to find me.

Drawing of Madeleine and Pepito swimming in a pool. Text on the sun above says "Summer is for playing in the sun." — it’s here, this is where you’ll find me

Until next time, happy reading!
❤ Catherine

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Housekeeping note: all links go to my Bookshop storefront, where each purchase supports independent bookstores (and this newsletter, because I get a small percentage of each sale).

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The only way to the end is through

April in Review — Lit Chat Vol. 18

Pyramid of book cover images with 1000 WORDS: A WRITER'S GUIDE TO STAYING CREATIVE, FOCUSED, AND PRODUCTIVE ALL YEAR ROUND by Jami Attenberg on top; MARTYR! by Kaveh Akbar and NOTHING TO ENVY: ORDINARY LIVES IN NORTH KOREA by Barbara Demick in the middle; DEATH VALLEY by Melissa Broder, THE BLUE MIMES by Sara Daniele Rivera, and A COURT OF THORNS AND ROSES by Sarah J. Maas on the bottom.

Hi friends,

April’s big news has been that I’m taking a temporary social media reprieve, and the brain space that has opened up over the past few weeks has been unbelievably refreshing. I went from taking two weeks to read one novel to finishing five books in ten days. My attention span is lengthening by the minute!

It’s silly because I haven’t really enjoyed posting on social media in years. It feels like a hassle, and I mostly prefer to leave my personal life to the imagination. But I love lurking. It’s the lazy girl’s equivalent of eavesdropping in a busy coffee shop. I love listening to other people’s conversations and personal dramas and feeling like I’m in the world even if I’m just alone in my bed. But guess what scratches that same itch? READING! (Shocking! I know.)

Being more or less offline has been freeing. I feel like a kid again, when the first thing I reached for when bored on summer vacation was a book, or a craft, or my bike. I feel like I have a brain again and I’m so excited to use it.

That said, let me tell you about some books! If you prefer to get this post right to your inbox, you can do so by subscribing to my Substack below:

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THE FOUNDATION:

Book cover images for DEATH VALLEY by Melissa Broder, THE BLUE MIMES by Sara Daniele Rivera, and A COURT OF THORNS AND ROSES by Sarah J. Maas

Death Valley — Melissa Broder

Melissa Broder has nailed writing weird little books with female protagonists who are about one mild inconvenience away from a full mental breakdown. In Death Valley, a writer escaping the pressures of tending to her hospitalized father and her chronically ill husband has a bizarre experience in the desert, which leads to her getting lost and coming face-to-face with the realities (surrealities?) of grief and love. Broder strips her protagonist’s needs down to their most primal, placing her basest desires on the same stage as her instinct to survive and proving the two equally necessary and inextricably intertwined. A quick, trippy read! I liked it better than The Pisces, but it didn’t stand out too much otherwise.

The Blue Mimes: Poems — Sara Daniele Rivera

This National Poetry Month was less poetry-heavy than past years, but I had to squeeze at least one collection in! The Blue Mimes won the Academy of American Poets First Book Award for its meditations on grief and longing during the tumultuous years of the Trump presidency and the pandemic, and the personal losses that defined this time for the poet. The poems flow seamlessly between English and Spanish, this dialogue an avenue to explore Rivera’s family legacies in Cuba, Peru, and the U.S. in an effort to preserve the stories and memories that get lost when moving between countries and generations. I really recommend taking a few minutes to read three poems from the collection on Electric Lit here.

A Court of Thorns and Roses — Sarah J. Maas

All of the people who recommended this series to me failed to mention that it is essentially Beauty & the Beast, but with sexy faeries! That would have been a crucial selling point for the former Disney kid in me. A human woman spirited into faerie territory, forced to live in an exquisite mansion with a cursed (but still gorgeous) faerie lord who treats her kindly and comes to love her?? Tale as old as time! Unfortunately for Feyre and Tamlin, the presence of four more books in this series leads me to believe their happily ever after is still a long ways away, but I’m definitely in the mood to see where the rest of this story goes.

SOLID SUPPORTS:

Book cover images for MARTYR! by Kaveh Akbar and NOTHING TO ENVY: ORDINARY LIVES IN NORTH KOREA by Barbara Demick

Martyr! — Kaveh Akbar

In this first novel from poet Kaveh Akbar, struggling writer and recovering addict Cyrus Shams seeks the wisdom of a terminally ill artist who has chosen to spend her final days in residence at the Brooklyn Museum. Having immigrated to America from Iran as a young child after the tragic death of his mother, Cyrus has a fascination with death and martyrs. His latest project, a book of poems about famous martyrs, is an attempt to find meaning in his own life and work, and his conversations with the artist become increasingly personal as he strives to reconcile his desire to die well with the indifferent reality of death.

I had the pleasure of seeing Kaveh Akbar discuss Martyr! at P&T Knitwear back in January, which was an absolute delight. Akbar spoke candidly about how his own journey with sobriety influenced Cyrus’s, and about the myriad influences on his work and creative process in his transition from writing poetry to fiction. Akbar’s sense of genuine awe and gratitude for the world around him are contagious and permeate throughout his work. He signed my book, “May you walk in wonder,” and I just think that’s a beautiful blessing to give to anyone, much less a stranger.

Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea — Barbara Demick

I want to give a shout out to my Aunt Sally for this recommendation! This book, which follows six former citizens of North Korea who defected to South Korea, was shocking in the ways I expected it to be, and devastating in ways I never thought to imagine. By interviewing defectors from various backgrounds and levels of privilege in South Korea, Demick reveals a country in chaos, rife with widespread poverty, bureaucratic disorganization, and deliberate misinformation during the reign of Kim Jong-Il to 2015, the time of her reporting.

The North Korean regime is often aptly described as Orwellian, in large part due to the nature of its surveillance state and enforced loyalty. However, what struck me the most was the extent of information deprivation throughout the country at all levels of wealth and privilege. Even as they were starving in a famine that killed millions in the 1990s, schoolteachers were still teaching their dying pupils that they should be grateful to be North Koreans, and that everywhere else in the world was inferior. A doctor who escapes across the Chinese border only realizes that this is untrue when she sees that dogs in China have more food to eat than she did back home. It’s easy for us in the West to dismiss North Korea as an anachronistic propaganda machine, but this book was eye-opening in its portrayal of the true horror and suffering its people have experienced for the sake of a few powerful men’s delusions.

THE TIPPY TOP:

1000 Words: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive All Year Round — Jami Attenberg

Book cover image for 1000 WORDS: A WRITER'S GUIDE TO STAYING CREATIVE, FOCUSED, AND PRODUCTIVE ALL YEAR ROUND by Jami Attenberg

I’m giving this book the top spot for April, but I’ve been taking my time with it ever since attending not one but two (!) of its Brooklyn launch events back in January. 1000 Words is the book version of author Jami Attenberg’s annual #1000WordsofSummer challenge, in which participating writers are tasked with writing 1000 words a day for two weeks. For each day of the challenge, participants receive a motivational email from either Jami or another writer, offering much-needed encouragement and perspective. This book is a collection of these letters, as well as a number of short craft talks from Jami, organized seasonally to represent the shifting needs and opportunities of one’s ever-evolving creative practice throughout the year.

It’s hard to express in just a few paragraphs how much #1000Words means to me. I’ve participated in the challenge and its mini offshoots with varying levels of success since 2020, and have found such wonderful and frankly life-changing community, along with significant consistency and improvement in my personal writing practice. I’ve spent the past four months with this book on my desk, reading a few pages at a time before getting busy. Now that I’ve come to the end, I can say with confidence that it’s a volume I’ll continue turning to for a very long time.

This book is essential for all writers, but I’d also recommend it to those with any kind of creative practice. Swap out “writing” for painting, singing, dancing, crafting, etc., and its prescriptions for setting achievable goals, recognizing your strengths, and carving our time for your work—among many, many other things—become universal for creatives everywhere. I’m so grateful for the wisdom and encouragement both inside this book and beyond it in the greater #1000Words community, and I can’t recommend both highly enough. If you’re interested in joining us, the next #1000Words challenge starts on June 1st!

That’s all for April! I’ll probably come back to Instagram eventually, but until then, text/email/these comments are the best way to reach me. And I hope you will still reach me, because I am more jazzed than ever to be reading and talking about books.

Until next time, happy reading!
❤ Catherine

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