Hit my reading goal (52 books) for the year! Some of that was pushed over by a couple of kids books that are certainly quicker to get through sure. But still I think they count. I also think this means maybe I need to change my goal for next year? We'll see what the rest of the year brings.
Last month, I talked about my (mini) reading slump and how I thought maybe I would just buy an audiobook version of a book I already own in hardback. Readers, I did it. And even though this had a different narrator than the previous Thursday Murder Club audiobooks, this was still a solid choice. Good job, me.
Total books read
7
Help Wanted by Adelle Waldman
The BFG by Roald Dahl
The Martian by Andy Weir
The Bullet That Missed by Richard Osman
Momfluenced: Inside the Maddening, Picture-Perfect World of Mommy Influencer Culture by Sara Petersen
The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters
The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman
Help Wanted by Adelle Waldman
A friend mentioned that a friend of theirs had recently started this book and when I saw my library had a copy, and couldn't figure out what else to read, I thought I'd give it a try. This is, as I've seen it described, a book about "ordinary people doing ordinary things" and a book summary is going to sound extremely boring. A group of people who work at a not-Target work the very early morning (starting at 4am) shift to unload and get the store stocked before it opens to customers. The manager of "movement" (formerly "warehouse") is self-absorbed, incompetent and generally ruins the flow of their work, while claiming insubordination to every little thing. But there's a chance to get rid of her because if she gets a promotion, maybe she won't be their problem anymore. Ultimately the book seems to be various vignettes of the different people in movement, their motivations, their circumstances that brought them to this job, what's going on in their personal lives and what this promotion could mean for them. The description calls this "darkly funny" and I don't know that there's that much humor in it. It's not depressing but it's also not an especially funny (dark or otherwise) book, though to be fair, very few books described as funny are. I liked it well enough and was drawn into the stories, but wished the characters were a bit more fleshed out and distinct.
Rating: 3.75 stars
The BFG by Roald Dahl
We're still on a Dahl kick with Matthew and it turns out, despite having read all this stuff a long long time ago, I do not remember any of it at all. For this, I remembered there was a giant, who is nice, a bunch of giants who are mean and eat people and a little girl. And none of that is wrong, sure, but there was a lot more about how many people are eaten every night (for what seems like a nightly occurrence for hundreds of years at least) the Queen of England playing a much bigger role in the story than I would have guessed. While I was a little worried about Matthew's reaction to children being snatched from their bed at night as a bedtime story (we're dealing with enough nighttime anxiety right now, thankyouverymuch) it didn't seem to bother him. I did have to skip over a couple bits that...let's say, didn't age great, but I didn't have to put the book down entirely so, still good?
Rating: 3.75 stars
The Martian by Andy Weir
Another book for Matthew! I mean, technically because I started reading this one to him to get him to go to sleep after I finished Project Hail Mary and thought he might like this enough to be interested but not so much that it would keep him awake. Instead, I realized how long this is for him, because I've been reading this, little by little, every night since July and multiple times he would ask "Is this still the Mars book?" Not necessarily as a bad thing (He also wanted me to clarify if we were on Mars, on Earth or on the ship, whenever the setting changed, so he was paying some amount of attention.) but I don't think we'd read any other book for quite this long. From my perspective, I still liked it. I've read it multiple times, so there weren't any real surprises, other than how much it curses, which is something I didn't quite think of till I was reading it out loud to a child. I had said of Project Hail Mary that it felt like The Martian just in another flavor. Having re-read The Martian now, I think I might like PHM a bit better?
Rating: 4.5 stars
The Bullet That Missed by Richard Osman
OH HEY, here's that book that I already own in hardback but then bought as an audiobook. Guess what? It's still great. I love love love the characters, this was another fun set of murders for the friends to solve, and overall an excellent time. I didn't LOVE the audiobook narrator this time around, since it was a different person. But I don't think they did a bad job, per se, and if they were the only narrator I heard, I wouldn't even be commenting. But I really like the narrator of the first 2 books (Lesley Manville) and often thought "Well that's not what Joyce sounds like" through this book. But the book is so good that honestly, at the end of the day, it was fine and I still loved the time listening to it.
Rating: 5 stars
Momfluenced: Inside the Maddening, Picture-Perfect World of Mommy Influencer Culture by Sara Petersen
I can't remember where I first heard of this, but I had it on my watchlist if my library ever got a copy and lo and behold, they did! Petersen takes a look at the world of mommy bloggers, the ways that they make being a mom look and how that differs from real day-to-day realities of parenting, making people feel bad and thinking "if only I bought x item, my life would be better". She talks a bit about the shift from women looking to magazines to see examples of these types of women, to blogs and most recently to IG & TT influencers as a more "authentic" voice. She talks about her own insecurities at being a mom and following these influencers (even sometimes buying the things they promote). But of course, she also delves into the problematic areas of presenting a perfect, unattainable life as if it is relatable, the lack of representation of mommy influencers that aren't white (and indeed, a number of influencers who are flat out white supremacists), of moms who aren't thing, of moms who aren't cis and straight. A narrow view. The only area she didn't really touch on that I expected was about the kids involvement and what it would do to them. Though I suppose that would move into a different topic. The book was fine. It had interesting points, it had some areas where I zoned out a bit while listening. But overall, it was fine.
Side note, this is the second recent book I've read to mention the podcast Maintenance Phase, which is excellent, and you should prob follow (even if they release episodes very sporadically, there is a nice back catalogue. Go enjoy getting angry at the health & wellness world.)
Rating: 3.5 stars
The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters
A Mi'kmaq family has been traveling from their home in Nova Scotia to Maine to pick blueberries during the season. One summer, the youngest child, a girl named Ruthie goes missing. After this beginning we're introduced to two storylines: a girl named Norma who grows up in Maine as the only child of a very overprotective mother but has strange dreams of another family and a man Joe, Ruthie's older brother and the last person to see her before she vanished, as he recounts the way his life changed every since his sister disappeared.
I don't know if I would have had a different experience reading vs listening to it, but (as with other similar stories) I never felt a connection to the characters, especially Norma. There seemed to be a lot of show vs tell and Norma especially felt flat. I heard the book telling me Norma was questioning herself and who she was, but I never really saw it. I heard the book telling me how much Norma loved her mother, despite her overprotectedness, but never saw it. Joe was a little more successful, felt a bit more rounded as a character, talking about all of the regrets he had and the tragedies that seemed to befall their family from that fateful day.
I thought the book ok. I wished the characters had been fleshed out, that there had more of an examination of grief and loss. Because the story, the idea was interesting, but this is so much about the characters and I just couldn't connect with them.
Rating: 3.25 stars
The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman
Another Thursday Murder Club book. I wasn't expecting one quite so soon but the library hold came in and who am I to question fate? I know I said just above how much I love love love the characters and guess what? STILL TRUE HERE. I love the characters. I love the mysteries. I especially love the side parts that aren't about the murders or the heroin but about growing older, about death. You know, all of the really light-hearted fun stuff? I loved this one (obviously) and now I'm ready for the latest in the series, whenever that library hold comes in, or more realistically, I just buy my own copy because who am I kidding?
Rating: 5 stars
Total pages read
2,328
Fiction
86%
Female authors
43%
US authors
43%
BIPOC authors
14%
Rereads
57%
Book club picks
14%
Format
audiobook: 57%
ebook: 43%
Where'd I get the book
library: 71%
Kindle/Audible: 14%
Indie: 14%
Decade published
1980s: 14%
2010s: 14%
2020s: 71%
Resolution books
57%
The Berry Pickers is by an Indigenous, Canadian author
The BFG is by a Welsh author and published before 2000
The Bullet That Missed and The Last Devil to Die are both by the same English author
