Ooooh, September. You had me hanging by my toenails so many times. What a month! And I feel like my reading reflects that. Here's what I finished and a few thoughts on each:
The Immortalists - Chloe Benjamin. Fiction. A family of kids learns when each of them will die, their death day. Strong start, solid story line with likeable characters and side themes of magic and destiny. A little slow at points but overall enjoyable. Also beautiful cover.
White is for Witching - Helen Oyeyemi. Fiction. If you are Shirley Jackson fan, go get this book. Silver House is not Hill House but it's not far off from Hill House. Basically, avoid it at all costs. A strange, beautiful, disturbing book for those who like eerie and aren't afraid to be at home alone, in the dark.
Long Live The Tribe of Fatherless Girls - T. Kira Madden. Memoir. I've always liked this genre (who doesn;t want to read about other people's whacked families?!) but somehow I've been more disappointed than excited by what I've been reading. Maybe because I loved classic memoirs like The Glass Castle and The Liars Club. But this one, THIS ONE, by T Kira Madden may be the best memoir I've ever read. Go, go, go get it. Devour it and then wait impatiently for whatever brilliance Madden gives us next. Just go already.
Eva's Man - Gayl Jones. Fiction. When Robert Jones Jr or Kiese Laymon post on their Instagram what they are reading and I multi-task over to Durham County Public Library spot and put it on hold. Hence me getting to this not new book by Gayl Jones, via both Laymon and Jones' recommendation of her new book, Palmares. Jones' is a mystery (see Hilton Als 10/4 New Yorker article) and a deep one so I thought I'd read other work before Palmares. And, I am thigh deep in library books right now and can't take on something I can't renew. Anyhoo, Eva's Man. It's....a lot in a very short book. Trauma, pain, violence, mental illness, incarceration. I can't think when I read something so painful in such a compact little volume. Not for the faint of heart.
Radical: The Science, Culture, and History of Breast Cancer in America - Kate Pickert. Non-fiction. This was excellent, surprisingly so. It's a rare find that is both well researched and that the author put themselves into in a thoughtful, non gushy, totally focused way. Pickert does this well. Reading this as I "read around" (a term I learned from Tressie McMiliam Cottom) breast cancer, culture and voice for a piece that I'm, tbh, making slow progress with.
Did you miss what I read in August? Click here.
Note: each book’s hyperlink above leads you to an affiliate link on Bookshop.org, not Amazon. if you click and buy from that link, I will get a few pennies.