C/R/TBR 2020

This regular feature changes a little each year (let's not talk about my attempts at graphic design), but some things have stayed the same. I still have a thing for crime/thriller books as there was at least one book of that genre listed in each C/R/TBR section. I'm also happy to say that our Book Club is still going strong as some of the books I read, including On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, were Book Club picks. 

But for the first time, I re-read a book (guess which one) and actually enjoyed reading books on my phone. In fact most of the titles listed here are books I read or discovered using an EBook library app.

Self isolation has greatly affected how I spend my time, but I surprisingly started reading EBooks before businesses, schools and other public spaces officially closed. I was going on vacation with my family for three weeks in mid-February and was a bit anxious about suitcase space. I was reading The Goldfinch, which was not only unbelievably large, but difficult for me to read. 

I first tried to read it when it came out in 2013, but I couldn't stay interested. I had just read The Secret History, which I loved, so I was pretty crushed that this book wasn't doing it for me. However, in the past two years I learned that this book was also difficult for a few people I knew who loved her first book. Instead of blaming my reading capabilities, I blamed it on timing. Perhaps 2013 wasn't the right time for me to read this book. 

So I borrowed it under the pretense that perhaps 2020 was the right time and of course the opposite of what I thought would happen, happened. I didn't magically become interested seven years later. I had almost maxed the number of renewals I was allowed on my library copy. I also didn't want to carry this heavy book abroad with me so I decided to borrow the EBook version. Long story short, it took me a long time to finish it but I did it. I read the damn book, and my favourite thing about it may still be the author photo, but I read it! I also became a regular cloudLibrary user. 

My favourite so far has been My Sister, The Serial Killer. This book was more about sibling relationships than a series of murders, and I think that's why I felt it was genius. Oyinkan Braithwaite depicts the jealousy and competition that absurdly co-exists with loyalty in most sibling relationships, and amplifies this tension by making one of the siblings a serial killer. It's very clever and actually made me laugh a few times. 

A close second was one I had read before. If you hadn't guessed it by now, the book I re-read this year was Little Fires Everywhere. I had listed it as a book I was currently reading in 2018, and I remember loving it. I intentionally do not re-read books because I'm always afraid I'm not going to like it as much the second time around, but this wasn't the case. There is a lot to absorb from this book - both from the plot and the writing. The first time I read it I was definitely more focused on the plot, and keeping track of the twists and turns that were happening. When it came to round two, I  paid more attention to the way fire was not just an event in the first chapter, but a theme that echoed throughout the book.

I forgot to include this title here, but another favourite is Women Talking by Miriam Toews. In this novel, women in a Mennonite community are being drugged and raped while unconscious. Those affected gather in an effort to respond to this crisis, but they are divided in their opinions on why it is happening and what they should do. This was another novel where I appreciated the writing. I think entertainment has a tendency to use horrible crimes as a tool to hold an audience, but this novel doesn't do that. Instead I found myself thinking more deeply about how the people in this community think, such as why certain people were included. One interesting detail you learn right away is that not everyone who is invited to these meetings are biologically women.

Most of the books on my TBR list this year are books I saved on the cloudLibrary app. I use this function to bookmark titles I'm interested in, but are unavailable or checked out by another user. It also saves time when you've finished reading a book and immediately want to start reading something new. When I've recently checked my saved list; however, I noticed there is one book that is always checked out: The Only Child.

The Only Child is about a criminal psychologist who is starting to see connections between a serial killer she is treating, and her husband's eleven-year-old daughter from a previous marriage. It is also described as "creepy" and advertised for fans of the movie Parasite. Being a fan of that movie, I was pretty intrigued to say the least. I would definitely describe Parasite as creepy (in a good way), but it isn't a word I think of often when I read books.

"Dark", on the other hand, is a word I use often. Machine and The Catholic School are two books that fall under this category for me. Machine is about a fatal accident where a young girl drowns. The story follows the narrator's attempts to piece together the details of this accident. The description I provided may suggest otherwise, but the style of this novel doesn't come off as a quintessential crime/thriller novel. It reminds me more of The Virgin Suicides where the focus is on the narrator(s) emotionally-fueled understanding of the incident, rather than a need to provide objective facts behind why it happened.

The Catholic School is also about processing a devastating event, except for that it's non-fiction. It's partially a memoir based on a real crime that happened in Italy in 1975, where two young women were brutally tortured (raped) and murdered. The author, Edoardo Albinati, went to the same school as the three men involved and discusses the sociological and cultural factors behind a crime like this occurring. Due to the heavy nature of the crime; however, I've put this book low on my TBR list. I have yet to be in the right mindset to read it.

The last two books I want to write about are My Baby First Birthday and Frying Plantain. Both were actually Instagram discoveries. I had been a long time follower (possibly fangirl) of Jenny Zhang from her Fashion for Writers days, which was a style blog originally started by Esmé Wang. Many may know her best as the author who wrote The Collected Schizophrenias - another book I forgot to include on my read list. So in typical fangirl behaviour, I'm interested in reading this new release which is a collection of poems.

Frying Plantain is a book I discovered through a local bookshop called Another Story Bookshop. I want to read it for purely selfish reasons because I'm Canadian with parents who immigrated from Trinidad, and the stories are about growing up with West Indian parents in the Greater Toronto Area. I see myself eventually writing about it on here, but I don't want to promise.

As you may have noticed, at the moment we are trying to ensure everyone survives a pandemic while also doing our best to take care of ourselves. The goal right now, for those who have the privilege, is to stay home and not keep pushing to achieve if you're finding yourself pushing beyond your limits already.

With that said, I know you'd expect me to say that reading is taking care of yourself but so is not reading. You can give up on a book that doesn't interest you, and you can give up on a book that may be too much for you. I've already done both.

So please, keep taking care of yourself and do not believe whatever I have listed as "read" because it is apparently not accurate. During the time it took me to write this sentence I thought of more books I read and forgot to include.

Girl, Woman, Other - also a good one.

Books Mentioned: 

1. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
2. A Stranger in the House by Shari Lapena
3.  The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
4.  My Sister, The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
5.  Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino
6.  Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
7. Women Talking by Miriam Toews
8. The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena
9.  Calypso by David Sedaris
10.  Kudos by Rachel Cusk
11.  The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
12.  Stubborn Archivist by Yara Rodrigues Fowler
13.  Little Gods by Meng Jin
14.  Cleanness by Garth Greenwell
15.  The Only Child by Mi-ae Seo
16.  Machine by Susan Steinberg
17.  The Catholic School by Edoardo Albinati
18.  My Baby First Birthday by Jenny Zhang
19.  Frying Plantain by Zalika Reid-Benta
20.  The Revisioners by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton
21.  The Collected Schizophrenias by Esmé  Wang
22.  Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo

Note (May 17 2020):

After writing this post, I realized that it is a bit of a shame that I'm forgetting books I've read. There are a lot of good books I miss talking about simply because they are further away in my memory by the time the new year starts. 

In an effort to make sure those books don't get missed this year, I'm starting a highlight on my occasionally used Instagram dedicated to books I'm currently reading and books I read in real time. This way you'll know what books I started and finished, or even started and gave up on. I don't plan to rate each book based on a five star rating scale (When did I ever do that?), but I'll do my best to give you some sort of reason and I guess you can decide whether it encourages you or stops you from reading it yourself.