Summer Reading Plan
Figuring out how to consume all the books all the time and live fully in story land whilst continuing to be a functional, contributing member of real world society is no mean feat. What’s the word we are looking to embody, or let’s be honest commodify, so that we can feel inner peace? Oh yeah it’s ‘balance’. That which most of us believe we do not have, true blissful balancing of all the spinning plates of obligation, responsibility and things we want to ‘get done’ in our daily life.
I have been wanting to cultivate a purposeful (filled) reading plan for many a moon now. Yet, every time I sit down to do so I get distracted by all the other more pressing things I have TO DO that are part and parcel of living a responsible adult, worry-filled life. Now what does that tell us dear ones? Perhaps now more than ever do I need to hold myself accountable to some reading plans as I reckon they fill this empty cup of mine so when the time comes for it I am not chucking it at the nearest head around me in frustration. I kid, I jest, I do all the things, I am an exhausted millennial mom.
My aim for the summer months has been to read two during each month that passes. I will give a little rundown of May and June’s reads and then once we head into the Autumn season I’ll swing back around to recap my closing summer reads.
May
This was a month which sadly had two reads I would describe as being mid tier for me. I thought they were going to blow my mind and alas, they did not.
The God of the Woods by Liz Moore
⭐⭐⭐/ 5
First off, I took a little foray into the path of a lesser trodden genre for me: murder mystery. Bearing in mind my last read in this genre was In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (A FANTASTIC book), this book had big shoes to fill. It did not.
This book has it all-summer camp, disappearance, the 1970s, a line of family mysteries tracing back decades. It is set in the eternally petrifying and alien Adirondacks, so nature and the non-human presence of the wild is ever felt. It revolves around character stories, suspicion and survivalist ideas. There is class division and the weird behaviors of the uber wealthy. It promises a lot, mainly it seeks to answer the question ‘what happened to Barbara Van Laar?’
I will give it this, I was desperate to know the twist and couldn’t put it down till I could find out the ‘whodunnit’. The problem was it felt, underwhelming when it finally did come. That was not even the most disappointing part, I felt like a disservice was done to a number of characters who had such intriguing momentum and realization at the beginning of the novel but randomly just stopped being developed halfway through. One of my least favourite writing choices is when an author changes characters to make decisions and behave in ways incongruent to what they have been building. Especially when it is actually nonsensical and feels like a throwaway move to keep the plot moving forward. I loved the setting and the conversation around mental health and the division of labour between men and women in generations past. I did not care for the lack of a resolution.⭐⭐⭐/ 5
I wanted to love this so much more than I did. There were some moments that were absolutely perfect, and I think if the book hadn't took such a steep turn in the second half from the momentum it built in the first it would have been better. This book was one I received as part of a book subscription box I receive and usually the books tend to knock it out of the park, this one just sort of fell flat.
Keru and Nate are a young, interracial couple trying to build a life of meaning in a world that feels laughably meaningless and ignorant to all the ways cultural differences can pull us apart. Over the course of several years they invite their respective families on vacation and confront the challenge of generating a new family across language and lifestyle divides.
This book started out witty, a little silly and set itself up to have a great big dissection on the challenge of longterm partnership especially in the context of the world we live in now. As someone who is married to a person from a different culture to my own, although we are both from Western cultures so there is a lot of crossover, I was looking forward to seeing this particular experience play out. Somewhere around the middle it got a little waylaid and by the end the book never quite moving into second gear. However, I did love a lot of the exploration of minute day-to-day detailing of the ways in which humans are so different and people across a broad spectrum of living can have valid and valuable ideas, lives and experiences. I liked it so maybe you will too, just didn’t love it in the way I thought I would.
June
The Wedding People, by Alison Espach.
⭐⭐⭐/ 5Not too happy was I with the first book I chose this month, a true ‘summer read’ if you will, it’s short and snappy and perfect for a pool or beach day. This is one that has been making the rounds on all the popular book lists and celebrity book clubs and is in talks for being made into a major film or tv show. I had been waiting for this ebook to become available through my library for literal months so it was disappointing that it did not meet my hope for it.
The story follows Phoebe Stone, as she arrives to stay in a beautiful remote hotel on Rhode Island dressed as a glamorous, bagless mystery. She accidentally plans her tip overlapping with a wedding party that has taken over and as the weekend unfolds she is wrapped up in their plans, coming to know, love and live a whirlwind of human connection and intimacy with these strangers who see her more than she has ever been seen in her life.
I thought that there are certainly moments that shine, particularly the commentary on womanhood, performance, the pain of erasure in relationships and the special sudden moments that make us feel alive. However, for me it fell short in the dialogue being just a little too quippy (I hate that trope) and the character of Phoebe being too perfect for the needs of the random strangers on this particular weekend. It all worked out a little too well to be believable. Otherwise an easy enough read with some moving moments that inspire gratitude for life in the reader.
Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Ended this lovely early summer month on a high note, this was an unexpected bombshell (no pun intended or perhaps yes) of a read. My brother’s girlfriend was the chooser of our book club pick this month and she brought it as hard as you can, I applaud her. She certainly understood the assignment, and her audience, this book is right up my entire family’s alley.
The story is told as a memoir of a playwright by the name of Howard W. Campbell Jr who moves to Germany and becomes front and center of the propaganda movement of the Nazi regime eventually standing trial in Israel for crimes against humanity. He also turns out to be a double agent for the United States so there is an even greater dimension thrown into his lot as he faces his uncertain future.
Is this book for you? Well, that depends because it is certainly not for everyone. It is an acerbic, satirical take down of political ideologies and the actions of neo-militant overlords who shape our world for the worse and have been doing so through each and every global and international skirmish for decades. This is a highly challenged book across the nation I live in. It is surprising, provocative, morally grey and frustrating in many ways.
The character espouses moral ambiguity and as he faces down his trial he is delightfully questionable in the retelling of his life. He brings up moral quandary after moral quandary and hammers home the illogical contradiction at the heart of war and conflict. The book examines the nature of propaganda, ‘end justifies the means’ ideology, the dichotomy of intent versus consequence and how do we determine truth. In fact I think this may be one of my favourite books I have read in a long time.
All in all, not a massively excellent kick off for summer reading but I do try to read across a diverse array of genres and authors so I am pleased with my choices even if they didn’t pay off necessarily. I am excited to see what the end of summer brings me. Also, I can credit this summer with finding me with a new all time favourite book so there’s that. Let me know if you have any book recommendations as I am always taking them.
Happy turning of the year!