Tag Archives: book-review

Lit Chat’s Best Books of 2024: Round 3

Hi friends,

We’re back with Round 3! I needed a little extra time to mull this one over, because it really could have gone either way for the top spot. Both the first and second place books will go down as not just the best of 2024, but some of the best of all time, which is no small achievement. Meanwhile, the third place book snuck into the top by nature of being one of my last reads of the year, and I’m delighted to have one last chance to chat about a truly fantastic book.

This isn’t quite how the bracket went, since we knocked Either/Or out last week, but I am no designer so I take what the Canva gods give me.

Before we dive in, I wanted to take a second and acknowledge the devastation still happening from the fires in LA right now. Libro.fm (a fantastic audiobook company that shares profits with indie bookstores, much like Bookshop.org) put together a helpful list of local bookshops with mutual aid drives and rest spaces on Instagram, which I’m linking below. Holding all of my West Coast friends and their communities close to my heart this week.

Bookshops in LA with mutual aid drives

As a last bit of housekeeping, I’ll also remind everyone that you can also get these posts delivered right to your email if you subscribe to my Substack:

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Okay, I’ve held you in suspense long enough! Let’s get into it.

Third Place: The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez

Book cover image for The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez


Since I neglected to send a newsletter in December where The Spear Cuts Through Water would’ve had its moment, I’m so glad that it managed to claim third place in the bracket so I can give more of a full run-down here:

TSCTW is a story within a story, beginning with a young narrator in a postwar city recalling the fantastical myths of her ancestral homeland, as told to her by her lola. One such story is that of the inverted theater beneath the water, which can only be attended in dreams. When the narrator finds herself there one night, the main story unfolds: the journey of Jun and Keema.

Jun is a prince of the Moon Throne—a semidivine dynasty of tyrannical emperors—and a grandson of the Moon herself, who has been imprisoned by her power-hungry children. Keema is a one-armed palace guard who swears an oath to his commander on her deathbed to deliver a spear to a soldier on the other side of the world. When Jun’s efforts to free the ancient Moon god result in the death of the emperor and chaos at the palace gates, Keema finds himself and the spear in a runaway wagon carrying Jun and the Moon across the country to freedom. Meanwhile, in the audience of the inverted theater, our first narrator watches among a crowd of other shades with a spear waiting mysteriously in her lap.

TSCTW seamlessly weaves together the narrative of the present moment and the collective knowledge of legend to incorporate Jun and Keema’s story into the narrator’s consciousness. Their odyssey is embroiled with political striving, ancient magic, mystical creatures both benevolent and monstrous, and beneath it all, a powerful, growing bond of respect, kinship, and something even stronger between the two warriors. We are warned from the beginning, after all, that the story the narrator’s lola tells is a love story.

Fantasy as a genre for adults, unless it’s a blockbuster series like Game of Thrones or a spicy romantasy like ACOTAR, is so often overlooked as being too unrelatable or “out there.” And yet, a book like this serves as the perfect vehicle to explore perfectly accessible themes of identity and connection, guilt and greed, love, trauma, and belonging. For being a welcome change of pace at the end of the year, and for being an incredible, unique book unlike anything I’ve read in any genre, I’m thrilled this has found a spot in third place for 2024.

Second Place: Catch the Rabbit by Lana Bastašić


This was so, so hard, and I think my answer truly might fluctuate depending on what feels more important to me on any given day. Regardless of its position in this bracket, Catch the Rabbit is one of the best books I’ve read in a long time.

If you didn’t catch my original review back in September, the Sparknotes is that Sara and Lejla are two close childhood friends who haven’t spoken to each other in nearly a decade. When Lejla calls Sara out of the blue and asks her to drive them from Bosnia to Vienna to find her long-lost brother, Sara drops the new adult life she’s created for herself in Dublin to dive right back into her past.

As someone who has been lucky to have many 10+ year-long friendships that cycle through periods of closeness and distance, the interplay of tension and intimacy in Sara and Lejla’s relationship hooked me from the start as feeling incredibly genuine. I was also completely engrossed by the precision with which Bastašić metes out the pieces of their story, weaving their personal history in with the history of the Bosnian War and seamlessly integrating the narrative back into the present day. The expertise with which she controls the information we receive, the timing in which we receive it, and the way this influences our perspective of both characters and their relationship throughout the novel is nothing short of masterful. In another year, this may very well have taken the top spot, but for today at least, Catch the Rabbit rests comfortably in second.

First Place: Biography of X by Catherine Lacey

Book cover image for Biography of X by Catherine Lacey

When I first read Biography of X last March, my main question as I was reading was just, how did she do this?

My obsession with this book is less related to its plot—that of a woman trying to write a biography of her late partner, an enigmatic artist—than it has to do with the book’s structure. The fact that it takes place in an alternate, divided America that feels dangerously close to becoming a reality is definitely something that keeps me up at night, but the extensive incorporation of supplementary material that works to legitimize that fictional world is what I really haven’t been able to stop thinking about for almost a year now.

The book’s narrator intersperses items from X’s archives into her biography: photographs, letters, objects, and other ephemera. The text is also peppered with quotations from various interviews, reviews, and articles, all chronicling X’s diverse achievements and iterations. We get a peek behind the curtain at the end of the book: after the fictional biography’s source list, we get Lacey’s. Most of the quotes are from real critics and writers about other real artists, manipulated slightly to reflect X’s narrative. We also see the provenance of each physical item in the archive: things Lacey collected, created, or commissioned, be it a vintage photograph, a handwritten letter, or a screen-printed t-shirt.

photograph of a book page that features a photo of a handwritten note
decided this needed visual support…also not *not* an excuse to show off the ring!
photo of two book pages, with a photograph of a woman on the top of the left page and the photograph of a t-shirt with a woman's face on it on the right page

The lengths to which Lacey went to create physical evidence of her fictional world, and the authenticity effect it produces for the reader, astonished and inspired me. Not knowing what’s real, fake, or simply warped, you’re entirely at her mercy, which is the exact kind of disorienting effect that the character of X has on everyone around her. Without access to the truth, we become completely dependent on the storyteller, and the story becomes its own kind of performance art. So, not only are the visual components cool as hell, but they’re also performing a specific and essential function in support of the story and its indefinable, unknowable protagonist. Simply put, I’ve never experienced anything like it in a work of fiction, and it’s inspired me to push the limits of my own creative work in a way that I hopefully? maybe? would like to start sharing with my lil audience of readers here this year…watch this space, I guess!

For broadening my literary horizons in terms of what a story can do, and for its achievements as a work of literature and art, I could not be more pleased to bestow upon Biography of X the coveted position of Lit Chat’s Best Book of 2024.

book bracket graphic with Biography of X by Catherine Lacey in the winning spot
yay!

There you have it! Another year in the books (pun so intended). Before we go, here’s a quick look at the Honorable Mentions that I also loved this year but which just missed the bracket:

Honorable Mentions

Collage of book covers featuring Trespasses by Louise Kennedy, Stay True by Hua Hsu, The Godfather by Mario Puzo, Nothing Left to Envy by Barbara Demick, Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride, Hotel Splendide by Ludwig Bemelmans, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, The Black Bird Oracle by Deborah Harkness, Funny Story by Emily Henry, Bluets by Maggie Nelson, and The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Thanks for reading with me in 2024! 2025 is already off to a fabulous reading start, and I’m excited to share some of my reading goals for the year with you next month. In the meantime, I’d love to hear from you if any of these books resonated with you, or if you have any other recommendations for me!

Until next time, happy reading!
❤ Catherine

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Housekeeping note: all book 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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Lit Chat’s Best Books of 2024: Round 2

Hi friends!

We’re back with Round 2, a little later than intended, but c’est la vie. I went back to the office this week and promptly forgot I had a brain.

Anyway, here are the standings after Round 1:

Book of the year bracket graphic

We’ve managed to narrow it down to six books out of twelve, which means things are about to get interesting. Let’s dig in.

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The Book of (More) Delights vs. Biography of X

Book covers for The Book of (More) Delights by Ross Gay and Biography of X by Catherine Lacey

This is another tricky match-up of two completely different kinds of books, which leads me to wonder if Biography of X would do the same kind of damage against another fiction book. My gut says it probably will, which is partially why it will be moving on to the next round. As much as I truly adored Ross Gay speaking sweet delights into my ear during an otherwise very depressing January, the inventiveness of Biography of X engaged—and continues to engage—my reader and writer brain in a way that felt kind of essential and definitive for my creative trajectory in 2024. I have more to say on that front, but I think I’ll save it for the final battle because it has more to do with what Lacey is doing on a craft level and how it compares to other works of contemporary fiction. Until then, we say a gentle goodbye and thank you for your service to The Book of (More) Delights.

Either/Or vs. Catch the Rabbit

Book covers for Either/Or by Elif Batuman and Catch the Rabbit by Lana Bastasic

I’m just now realizing these match-ups are only going to get harder. Coincidentally, this is another thematically well-suited opponent for Catch the Rabbit, considering much of the story is told in flashbacks to a time when the characters were roughly Selin’s age, or at least moving through that same formative late high school/early college era of adolescence. While both books contain so many of my favorite coming-of-age hallmarks, I have to admit that much of Either/Or’s plot has already become a bit fuzzy for me, whereas I feel like I can still remember entire scenes and conversations from Catch the Rabbit nearly verbatim. This story has imprinted itself into my brain in a way that makes me want to revisit it not because I’ve forgotten it, but because I feel a weird urge to keep poking the bruise that is Leyla and Sara’s relationship, especially knowing where their journey ends. For sinking its claws in deep and not letting go, I’m moving Catch the Rabbit forward.

Intermezzo vs. The Spear Cuts Through Water

Book covers for Intermezzo by Sally Rooney and The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez

I thought I knew how this one was going to go, but now that I’m sitting here thinking about it, I’m having second thoughts. Obviously, a Sally Rooney goes right to the top, right? But if I’m being fair and comparing these two books head to head, then I have to consider the reality that The Spear Cuts Through Water was, objectively, a way more fun read. Sure, I think Intermezzo is Rooney’s best book on a technical level. Her prose is exquisite, her characters’ flaws painfully and deeply human, and her commentary on love/sex/relationships both scathing and oddly compassionate, like a god who recognizes her characters as silly playthings but loves them anyway and somehow convinces us to love them, too.

But TSCTW has actual gods. And magic, and quests, and talking turtles, and a mythical underwater theater you can only go to when you’re dreaming, and plotting and fighting and rivalries and a queer love story that doesn’t make you want to bang your head against the wall or psychoanalyze every word out of the characters’ mouths. TSCTW is a cinematic masterpiece on the page, and deserves a whole lot more hype, actually!! The more time I spend away from it, the more I realize I’m not done talking about it, whereas Intermezzo has, frankly, been talked and written about to death. Time to give someone else some airtime.

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Surprised? Me too! This didn’t go quite how I thought it would, but I’m actually pretty pleased with where we’ve ended up. Stay tuned for the final round, coming this weekend (Saturday or Sunday, whenever I get my shit together).

Until then, what do you think? Agree or disagree? Which one do you think deserves to take the lead?

Chat soon,
❤ Catherine

Housekeeping note: all book 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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Lit Chat’s Best Books of 2024: Round One

Template image for a Book of the Year bracket

Hello friends! Here we are again. 2024 was a long year, in which I somehow managed to finish 53 books despite numerous travels, weddings, getting engaged(!), and countless other distractions and diversions. Not as many books as years past, but a whole lot more life, and a really great year of reading, nonetheless.

For Round One of the Lit Chat’s Best Books of 2024 Bracket, we’ve got six match-ups. Most of these were pyramid-toppers, but not all! We’re working outside of the pyramids a little bit this year because I ended up combining a few months together a couple times (and I only read one book in November and December each, so no newsletter there, oops), but I want to make sure all these fantastic books get their fair shot. Make your predictions and place your bets now, because we’re about to get into it.

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ROUND ONE:

Book cover images for The Book of (More) Delights by Ross Gay and I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy

The Book of (More) Delights vs. I’m Glad My Mom Died

We started the year strong with two audiobooks narrated by their respective authors, which is an experience I treasure. For this specific match-up, the winner is going to be determined mostly by vibe, as both were fantastic in their own ways. I quickly became deeply invested in Jennette’s story, and found so much to admire in the strength and clarity of her writing, her resilience, and her signature humor. Meanwhile, The Book of (More) Delights found me during a time where I deeply needed a reminder to look for joy in my daily life, and Ross Gay helped me find it. I’ve tried to keep up this practice throughout the year whenever I’m out and about in the world, finding a contented feeling of peace in the way my neighborhood changes through the seasons and the small, tender moments of humanity witnessed on my morning commute. For being a consistent and much-needed source of joy, Ross Gay wins this round.

Book cover images for Biography of X by Catherine Lacey and 1000 Words: A Writer's Guide to Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive All Year Round by Jami Attenberg

Biography of X vs. 1000 Words: A Writer’s Guide

This is a very tough case of completely different kinds of books that have had a profound impact on me in completely different ways, and as such I would never otherwise be comparing them. Biography of X was a novel that changed the way I think about the novel as a form in its depiction of a character whose defining characteristic is a refusal to be defined. 1000 Words is the companion craft book to Jami Attenberg’s #1000wordsofsummer annual challenge, which has brought me invaluable connection and companionship along with inspiring me to produce literally thousands of words. These are both books that I keep close to my desk and return to frequently, so this is probably the most difficult match-up of this entire round. With a heavy heart, I’m going with Biography of X, purely because in a competition consisting mostly of novels, it feels most fair to compare this one to the rest of the contenders. However!! Let it be known that 1000 Words deserves a special honorable mention as being a book that well and truly shaped not only my reading year, but my entire writing practice.

Book cover images for A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas and Either/Or by Elif Batuman

A Court of Mist and Fury vs. Either/Or

While I do stand by ACOMAF being the best of the series, it’s simply no contest when up against a shining example of contemporary literary fiction at its finest. Either/Or was the smart, funny, and endearingly relatable sequel to a favorite from years past, The Idiot, about a Harvard undergraduate spending the summer as a travel writer. It played on my English major’s heartstrings, gave me glimpses into a part of a world I’ve never seen, and let me gobble up a progression of increasingly chaotic romantic encounters like the nosy busybody I am. This isn’t to say I didn’t also gobble up the enemies-to-lovers romance that dominates the second book in Sarah J. Maas’s steamy series; I did go on to read like two thousand more pages of this series over the course of the year, after all. But Either/Or was meaty in a way that fed my brain and my heart and made me feel like I was learning and growing right along with Selin, so onward Selin goes to the next round.

Book cover images for Catch the Rabbit by Lana Bastasic and The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Catch the Rabbit vs. The Road

While both of these books are coincidentally about emotionally fraught road trips, and both can claim powerful endings that caught me by surprise, there is a clear winner here. The Road has the advantage of unexpectedly moving me to tears, but I finished the book and mostly stopped thinking about it after a few days. In contrast, I still think about the final scene of Catch the Rabbit probably twice a week. Catch the Rabbit achieved so many things that I am obsessed with during Sara and Leyla’s chaotic journey of reconnection: it seamlessly interwove years of personal and national history into the present moment, doling out perfectly-paced details and anecdotes as needed to reinforce Sara’s narrative, all while putting the slippery messiness of memory and growing up on full display. Bonus points for the experience of reading this book while on the train through the European countryside. I’m grateful to The Road for being my introduction to McCarthy’s work and enjoyed it so much more than I expected I would, but Catch the Rabbit became one of my favorite books of all time, and has a strong chance of beating out all the rest for book of the year.

Book cover images for The Pairing by Casey McQuiston and Intermezzo by Sally Rooney

The Pairing vs. Intermezzo

Another tricky one, because these are two of my favorite authors living and writing today for an audience of people around my age, which is a really special experience. What this one comes down to is that while I thoroughly enjoyed The Pairing, it simply does not carry the same weight that Intermezzo does. To be fair, they are completely different genres, so this isn’t really a fair match-up! The Pairing is a rollicking, raunchy second chance romance set on a food and wine tour of Europe, while Intermezzo is a quiet, thoughtful, plodding and at times painful exploration of love, sex, relationships, and social norms through a solidly literary lens. At the end of the day, I feel like Intermezzo engaged my brain in a way that feels excessively rare these days,inviting me to forgo the instant gratification championed in The Pairing in favor of sitting with its characters and their situations in a way that inspired reflection and analysis. I am, for better or worse, exactly Sally Rooney’s target audience, and for that reason, she wins the day.

The God of the Woods vs. The Spear Cuts Through Water

Book cover images for The God of the Woods by Liz Moore and The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez

Writer Maris Kreizman called The God of the Woods “the thriller of the year,” and I wholeheartedly agree. It was a sit-down-on-the-couch-and-don’t-get-up-for-three-hundred-pages kind of book that simply requires absolute surrender. On the other hand, The Spear Cuts Through Water took me so long to finish that the Brooklyn Public Library threatened to make me pay for it. However! My slowness was more situational than merit-based, because The Spear Cuts Through Water is a book unlike anything I’ve ever read before. It’s the story of an epic journey, a reality-blending legendary history performed with the intermittent inclusion of a Greek chorus of supporting voices. It’s a love letter to the oral tradition and a love story at its heart, filled with magic, intrigue, and some of the most impressively all-encompassing worldbuilding I’ve read in a long time. The God of the Woods was a fantastic page-turner filled with compelling characters and sharp commentary on elitism and social class, but The Spear Cuts Through Water is entirely unique in its form and content, introducing readers to a world as vast, rich, and dangerously enchanting as Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones. This is the future of fantasy, people!! For that reason, it’s moving forward.

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Thanks for coming along for Round One! Stay tuned for the Round Two in the next couple of days. In the meantime, I’d love to hear about your top books of the year, especially if we have any in common, or any recommendations you have for me in 2025!

Until next time, happy reading!
❤ Catherine

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

Visit my Bookshop storefront

In da (reading) club, we all fam

September in Review — Lit Chat Vol. 21

Book cover images for The Pairing by Casey McQuiston, The Black Bird Oracle by Deborah Harkness, and Funny Story by Emily Henry

Hi friends,

Before anyone asks, no I have not finished the new Sally Rooney yet, but I did go to the midnight release party at Greenlight Bookstore and came in third place during Sally Rooney trivia!!

Catherine and Elizabeth in Greenlight Bookstore holding up the custom Intermezzo by Sally Rooney inspired Baggu tote bags
Team Rooney Tunes (minus Zoë) and our third-place swag: custom Baggu totes…
Hildi (tabby cat) wearing a yellow and cream checkered Intermezzo bandana
…and tiny Intermezzo bandanas!

September was a bit of a doozy and I did not get as much reading done as I’d hoped. I considered waiting until next month to check in when I had more to talk about, but then I realized that this month also marks two years of sending these little newsletters out, so I wanted to at least say hi and commemorate that! Two years! Thanks so much for being here.

To celebrate, for my NYC based friends: I am hosting a little reading club/party on November 2nd at 3pm! All are welcome! Everybody just has to come prepared to talk about something they’ve read recently (book, story, poem, essay, article, etc.) , and there will be snacks and drinks. I had first wanted to do this in January and never got around to it, but I’m serious this time and hoping to make it a regular thing in 2025! Consider this a soft launch (ten months late). RSVP here!

Come to my reading club!

For now, though, I have a mini update of three books to chat about, all from favorite authors whose books I will always be excited to pick up. Let’s get into it!

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SOLID SUPPORTS:

Book cover images for The Black Bird Oracle by Deborah Harkness, and Funny Story by Emily Henry

The Black Bird Oracle — Deborah Harkness

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that there was a new book in the All Souls series, and even more so to find that it felt more like the beginning of a new series than an end to one! I’ve read or listened to all four of the other books in this series about a modern-day witch who falls in love with a vampire, but it was a pleasure to be back in Diana’s head as she reconnects with her late father’s side of the family. Ravenswood is the perfect magical home to serve as a backdrop for Diana’s journey to finally begin exploring her penchant for higher magic, featuring an enchanted wood, vividly corporeal ghosts, and generations of family secrets brought to light. I look forward to following the rest of Diana’s journey in future books, and I’d recommend the first All Souls book, A Discovery of Witches, for anyone looking for a dark academia/paranormal romance for spooky season!

Funny Story — Emily Henry

My friends are so divided on Emily Henry, which I honestly find fascinating. My feeling is that if you’re into the rom-com genre, then you’re mostly inclined to like her books, but if it’s not for you, then it’s not for you and that’s okay! For what it’s worth, I think Henry is a master of her genre, and Funny Story has all the hallmarks: witty banter, a dangerously hot love interest in near-constant close proximity, and a fake dating scheme that turns into real feelings remarkably fast. Another thing I deeply appreciate about her books is the comparatively uncommon settings: I fell in love with small-town Michigan just as much as I did with the truly delightful supporting characters. Also, I appreciate that Daphne and Miles are well into their thirties and still figuring things out. It eased some of my late-twenties “am I doing the right thing with my life” anxiety by reminding me that regardless of the answer, I still have plenty of time.

THE TIPPY TOP:

Book cover image for The Pairing by Casey McQuiston

The Pairing — Casey McQuiston

Cheating a little bit because I didn’t finish this one until the first week of October—sue me! Casey McQuiston is an always-buy author for me, because their books always seem to be exactly what I need, when I need them. The Pairing is about former childhood best friends/lovers turned exes, Kit and Theo, who unexpectedly reconnect when they both book the same three-week European food and wine tour. To distract from their unresolved feelings for each other, they decide to compete to see who can sleep with the most people in each city of the tour.

As a quick scan of the Goodreads reviews will tell you: this book is not for everyone! It looks like a lot of the qualms were about how sexual this book was (it is McQuiston’s spiciest yet! Consider yourself warned!), or about how unrealistic/inaccurate/stereotypical the characters’ European shenanigans were. To this I say: I don’t particularly care!

For me, rom-coms exist in the same suspension-of-disbelief realm as a good fantasy: they’re meant to be an escape. I don’t care if it’s realistic that Theo and Kit would so easily charm their way onto a yacht in Monaco, or whether a luxury yacht would even technically be able to dock in Monaco at that time of year. I care about indulging vicariously in multi-course Italian meals with perfectly paired wines. I’m here for the glimpses of slow living in the French countryside, and the novelty of experiencing art and architecture I’ve seen with my own eyes through the lens of somebody else’s. Let me be seduced by a good accent and some clever dialogue, even if only in my head!

Yes, it was painful watching Kit and Theo sleep with other people and pretend they didn’t still have a whole lifetime’s worth of feelings for each other. And yes, the international food-wine-sex binge was a little over the top at times. But I also thought it was the perfect backdrop of freedom and decadence against which the characters could reevaluate everything they thought they knew about their relationship and each other. Both Kit and Theo’s queerness is thoughtfully and tenderly explored, and I especially admired the absolute comfort and confidence with which they inhabited and took pride in their bodies. I also appreciated how necessary it was for both of them to take the time apart to grow into themselves before they could go back to growing together as a couple. If nothing else, The Pairing is a reminder that true love knows no bodily or geographical boundaries, and will always find its way back.

However, I would be remiss if I left you without this much more important reminder from my pal Shana’s review, which did make me cackle:

Goodreads two star review from Shana Zucker that reads "Friendly reminder from your local sex educator that you should never tear open a condom wrapper with your teeth"

That’s all for now! I’m gonna go back to reading Intermezzo so I can finally catch up with the discourse. If you’re local, hopefully you can join me to chat in person in November!

Come to my party!!

If not, I’m always happy to chat here and anywhere else you can reach 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).

Visit my Bookshop storefront

Everything vanishes and nothing returns

March in Review — Lit Chat, Vol. 17

Pyramid of book cover images, with Biography of X by Catherine Lacey on top, Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang and The Godfather by Mario Puzo in the middle, and The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller, X-Acto by Kate DiCamillo, and Heartstopper Volume 5 by Alice Osman on the bottom.

Hi friends,

What is there to say about March? It’s always colder, wetter, and longer than I want it to be, as all the fun seems to go out of it after my birthday. Good reading weather, but not good for much else. Not much to report here, so let’s just skip to the books!

As always, if you’d rather get this post in an email right to your inbox, make sure you’re subscribed to my Substack here:

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THE FOUNDATION:

Book cover images for The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller, X-Acto by Kate DiCamillo, and Heartstopper Volume 5 by Alice Osman

The Paper Palace — Miranda Cowley Heller

Two of my least favorite things to read about are infidelity and sexual assault (particularly CSA), and both of these happen in the first 30 pages, so a big fat content warning for this one! I came very close to noping out after that, but I powered through for the sake of book club. The Paper Palace opens with a woman cheating on her husband with her best friend at her family’s summer lake house, and the rest of the book is spent unpacking the woman’s traumatic past to show how she got to this point of no return. The timeline hopping was a bit tough to keep up with, but the ambiguous ending inspired a heated book club debate, which is always fun. I would’ve never chosen this book for myself, but if you’re someone who enjoys twisted narratives and awful characters, this could be for you!

X-Acto — Kate DiCamillo

This is a soft plug for One Story magazine, which mails its monthly stories to subscribers in a cute little paper zine. This isn’t an ad; I’m just a fan who was delighted to find a story from one of my favorite childhood authors in my mailbox this month! Kate DiCamillo’s “X-Acto” is a short story for adults about two children of divorced parents who go to stay with their father and his new girlfriend for the summer. There’s a darkness to this story that I found surprising compared to my childhood memories of reading DiCamillo, but also a familiar sense of defiant resilience. “Terrifying and hopeful” is how DiCamillo describes this story in an interview with the story’s editor, which you can read here, and while you’re at it, you can buy the story for a whopping $2.50. Is there anything more fun than good snail mail in this digital spam age?? I think not.

Heartstopper Vols. 2-5 — Alice Osman

Oh, my heart! I spent a solid week down with a cold this month, and Nick and Charlie were very much there for me in my congested suffering. Beyond the obvious reasons of representation, I think these books are also so important because they’re teaching an audience of young readers what healthy relationships and communication skills look like, for all gender identities and sexual orientations. Volume 4 in particular, which deals with Charlie’s eating disorder, tenderly portrays the difficulty of wanting to be a supportive partner when you’re not equipped to give the person you love the kind of help they need. Oseman does a beautiful job of teaching that sometimes the best and only thing you can do is listen and be there for someone, and make sure the real help is coming from a trusted (adult) source. I wish I had half the courage and compassion of these kids when I was a teenager, and I’m so glad there’s still one more volume in Nick and Charlie’s story to look forward to.

SOLID SUPPORTS:

Book cover images for Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang and The Godfather by Mario Puzo

Natural Beauty — Ling Ling Huang

This was a wild satire of the wellness industry turned unexpected thriller, and I was engrossed in every second of it. Our narrator, a child of Chinese immigrants and former piano prodigy, is strapped for cash when she accepts a job at Holistik, a prestigious beauty and wellness company. Holistik offers everything from products to treatments to pills, and the narrator welcomes the changes the job (and the free products) bring to her life and body, until a series of frightening encounters brings the company’s sinister underbelly to light.

This novel was the joint book club pick for my work’s AAPI and Women’s Networks, and the author was kind enough to join us for a virtual Q&A, which was so special! My personal highlights were when she shared how her career as a violinist and the movie Shrek were two main inspirations for this provocative debut. Natural Beauty is currently being adapted into a TV series by Constance Wu, and you’re definitely going to want to read the book first.

The Godfather — Mario Puzo

Let me just say, I was so unprepared for how much brain space this book (and movie) were about to take up in my mind. Until now, my only frame of reference for The Godfather was Joe Fox’s repeated references in You’ve Got Mail, which honestly always seemed like a red flag to me. Now, after reading the book and seeing the movie (in theaters, no less!), dare I say…I get it.

What fascinated me most about this story was not the way it made other pop culture references finally make sense, but the way it explored the various forms and avenues of power, how that power manifested differently in each of the characters, and how easily and often it was manipulated through the seemingly innocuous institutions of family and friendship. Questions of what it means to be powerful, to embody power and feel entitled to wield it, have been stewing in the back of my brain ever since. I feel like these thoughts come less naturally to women, so I’m now on a mission to find (or create??) some kind of female equivalent. In the meantime, I’m gonna need to watch Part II ASAP.

THE TIPPY TOP:

Book cover image for Biography of X by Catherine Lacey

Biography of X — Catherine Lacey

This book was one of my most highly anticipated reads ever since reading (and loving) Pew last October. On the surface, it is the fictional biography of X, a famously enigmatic artist, written by her widow, C.M. Lucca. Lucca’s biography is a thoroughly researched attempt at understanding her elusive spouse, including interviews, archival material, and numerous secondary sources documenting decades of X’s shifting artistic personas. Depending on who Lucca talks to, X is a genius, a mystery, a liar, a visionary, a manipulator, or a hack—and as impossible to forget as she is to pin down.

I was less intrigued by X’s resistance to definition as I was by the construction of this novel, specifically the way Lacey uses media to create an alternate reality that is both aspirational and dystopian. Set in an alternate history in which the U.S. was divided into regional territories after WWII, X escapes the uber-conservative autocratic Southern Territory as a young woman and spends most of her career in the ultra-liberal democratic haven of the North, integrating herself into the New York arts and literary scene of the 70s and 80s.

Lacey incorporates photographs alongside quoted text from real interviews, letters, articles, and books about historical figures and events—the Berlin Wall, David Bowie, Susan Sontag, and Kathy Acker are just a few—and either attributes them directly to X or manipulates them to reflect the divided world that produced her. I am obsessed with the way Lacey takes details from history and simply refilters them through the lens of X to create a perfectly plausible substitute reality. As with X’s many personas, the line between the truth and the version of it that Lacey offers her readers is not only blurred but completely disposable. The truth is the least interesting part of this novel; X is a variable that isn’t meant to be solved, but clearly that hasn’t stopped me from trying.

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Did that even make any sense? I don’t know anymore! Writing it gave me a massive headache, that’s how much this book scrambled my brain. Anyway, let me know if you read it (or any of these books, of course!) because clearly, I have a lot of thoughts.

And if you’d rather avoid the headache, there’s always the Heartstopper Netflix adaptation. 😍

Until next time, happy reading!
❤ Catherine

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Angels might be we all

January in Review — Lit Chat, Vol. 15

Pyramid of book cover images with The Book of (More) Delights by Ross Gay on top, Minor Details by Adania Shibli and Trespasses by Louise Kennedy in the middle, and Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan, Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa, and Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros on the bottom.

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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Hi friends,

January was a long, hard month, but there were a few bright spots, including a bunch of really great book events (Jami Attenberg! Kaveh Akbar!), comedy shows, time with friends, and absconding to Florida for some much-needed sunshine.

And of course, the books. In a month where most of my well-intentioned goals for the new year went swiftly out the window in record time, at least my reading stayed mostly consistent. Books are always a lifeline for me in the winter, but this year, they’ve felt especially necessary. If you have any good winter escapist recs, I would love to hear them.

Moving right along, we’ve got a full slate this month! If you’d prefer to get this post sent directly to your inbox, consider subscribing to my Substack below.

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THE FOUNDATION:

Book cover images for Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan, Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa, and Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros.

Mad Honey — Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan

I’m not really a Jodi Picoult fan, but this book did prompt one of the most thoughtful book club discussions we’ve had in a long time. Picoult and Boylan largely split the writing for Mad Honey, with Boylan writing the perspective of Lily, a high school senior who tragically dies, and Picoult writing Olivia, a single mother whose son is put on trial for his girlfriend’s death. I preferred Lily’s chapters and appreciated that they were authored by someone with a particularly relevant lived experience, but I didn’t love that the plot ended up hinging on a surprise revelation that made way for a lot of topical spoon-feeding. That said, if there are readers who genuinely learn something about other people’s identities and experiences from this page-turner, then it’s achieving what it sets out to do.

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop — Satoshi Yagisawa, translated by Eric Ozawa

One of my reading goals for the year is to read more in translation, and this one was a fun start! After a bad breakup, Takako quits her life in the city to fulfill my personal dream of living and working in her uncle’s secondhand bookshop in Jimbocho, Tokyo, a neighborhood known for its many used bookshops. Once she’s back on her feet, she finds she has the opportunity to help her uncle do the same when his estranged wife reappears out of the blue. This gentle, heartwarming little book left me with a newfound interest in Tokyo’s secondhand bookshop scene and a whole reading list of translated Japanese literature, courtesy of the translator’s note at the end.

Iron Flame — Rebecca Yarros

The silver lining of an otherwise unsuccessful trip to the DMV in December was discovering that I had somehow been delivered a “skip-the-line” copy of this Fourth Wing sequel on Libby (did anyone else know this existed??). In this one, we’re back with Violet for her second year in the Riders Quadrant, but she’s struggling to hide the truth about what’s really threatening Navarre’s borders from her friends. When she finally caves, the story opens up at last to a world beyond Basgiath, with a host of new characters, folklore, and secrets to be uncovered—and kept. Supposedly this is only book #2 of 5, and judging by the ending, I’d say readers will need to strap in tight for the rest of the series. (TV adaptation when???)

SOLID SUPPORTS:

Book cover images for Minor Detail by Adania Shibli and Trespasses by Louise Kennedy

Minor Detail — Adania Shibli, translated by Elisabeth Jaquette

(CW: rape)
Another book in translation, this time from Palestinian author Adania Shibli. Coming in at just over a hundred pages, the first half of this book follows an Israeli officer in the aftermath of the Nakba in 1949, tasked with eradicating the last of the Arabs in the newly occupied territory. Over the course of these raids, the officers capture, rape, and kill a young Palestinian girl. Years later, a woman living in occupied Palestine reads of the incident and is consumed by the desire to learn more from the girl’s perspective.

This brief, haunting narrative is especially poignant when you consider that it was published in 2017, years before this latest chapter of horrific violence in the region but a product of the same conflict that has been ongoing for over seventy years. The book’s foundation is one of violence and eradication, so it’s unsurprising that the painstaking efforts of the second half to recover any personal details resembling truth are ultimately unsuccessful. There are no easy answers here, no closure, and no justice. How can answers be found when there is no one left to keep them, much less find them? This dilemma is once again unfolding in real-time, so if you haven’t written to your senators in a while about supporting a ceasefire, now would be a great time.

Trespasses — Louise Kennedy

Oh, how I love my Irish lit, depressing as it may be. Set in Belfast at the height of The Troubles, Trespasses follows Cushla, a young Catholic primary school teacher who begins an affair with an older, married Protestant barrister. I don’t usually go in for affair storylines, but for me, the romance took a backseat to the other alluring personalities that filled Cushla’s world: the eccentric regulars at her brother’s pub, the world-weary first-graders in her class, her sharp-tongued, alcoholic mother who misses absolutely nothing.

Kennedy brings this community to life in vivid color with smart, witty dialogue and a stark awareness of the boundaries drawn between themselves and the city around them, contrasting their would-be quiet lives with the persistent violence that is quite literally on their doorstep. The book is a study not merely of political conflict, but of internal and interpersonal conflict as well. All of this pushes Cushla to consider just how much she wants to ask from the life she’s been given—and whether it’s enough. I was surprised by how much I wound up enjoying the end of this one, and I’m looking forward to reading Kennedy’s short story collection, The End of the World Is a Cul de Sac, as well.

THE TIPPY TOP:

Book cover image for The Book of (More) Delights by Ross Gay

The Book of (More) Delights — Ross Gay

This book is as delightful as its title, made even more so by the author’s joyful audiobook narration. Though I haven’t read its predecessor, The Book of Delights, I believe this follow-up uses much the same format as a collection of daily musings on things the author finds delightful. The delights cover everything from hiking misadventures to gardening, gnomes, beloved family members, aging, basketball, trucks, angels, and many tender observations about the small routines and intimacies that make life precious.

About midway through the book, Gay comes to the realization that the delights are doubling as gratitudes, that they are a way of looking at the world with love and thankfulness for the gift of being able to experience them. As I listened to each delight while walking around my neighborhood, I found myself looking for—and finding—things to be grateful for in the vein of delights: the somehow as-yet unfrozen koi pond on the corner of my block; strangers who smile at you on the street in a wholesome, non-creepy way; the legion of Brooklyn Heights dogs in coats and booties; and the unexpected relief of walking out the front door and finding it warmer outside than expected.

These delights were a much-needed ray of sunshine in an otherwise tough, gray month. Being able to start my reading year off with these words of gratitude, and with the opportunity to use them as a lens for finding joy in my own life, was nothing short of a gift.

That’s all for January! I’m very excited about my February reading because the BPL gods have smiled on me (see below photo), so it’s safe to say I am BUSY for the foreseeable future (but also always down to chat in all the usual places).

Stack of hardcover books on a wooden desk, from top to bottom: Stay True by Hua Hsu, Gwen & Art Are Not in Love by Lex Croucher, The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller, Biography of X by Catherine Lacey, and Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo.
lucky lucky me!
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Until next time, happy reading!
❤ Catherine