I wanted to set a reading challenge for myself this year. I had fallen into something of a reading rut, doing a lot of rereading favorite books, and wanted to make myself read some new things. While I’m a fast reader, I wasn’t sure I was up to the challenge of 52 books in 52 weeks, because I do have other hobbies and interests outside of reading. Instead, I decided I’d shoot for four books a month, so that I’d have an extra couple of days of leeway if life got too busy for me to sit and read for any length of time.
ETA: I am soliciting recommendations for future FBAM reads!
In January, I read the following books:
The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver was exactly what I needed to start the year. Barbara Kingsolver is one of my favorite contemporary writers, and she did not disappoint me this time. Politics, history, an (incredibly appropriate) undertone of magical realism, with a partial setting in Asheville, NC? Color me sold. I learned a lot about pre-WWII-era communism, Trotsky, Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, and about the McCarthyist senate hearings and blacklist. The format, journals and letters of the protagonist assembled posthumously by his secretary, creates interesting gaps in the timeline and provides limited insight into certain areas of his life, but detailed looks into others. I noted some uncomfortable similarities between political events in the book and some current goings-on. Definitely worth reading!
My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares wasn’t nearly as fluffy as I’d anticipated. I enjoyed Brashares’s other work, the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series, but it wasn’t the most substantive read. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Brashares devoted as much energy to crafting the setting and backstory in My Name is Memory (an area that I found significantly lacking in the Pants books) as she did to character development. Brashares’s take on reincarnation was interesting from both a literary and philosophical perspective, and I enjoyed the short glimpses into all the different cultures throughout history. Not the best book I’ve ever read, but a solid and enjoyable book nonetheless. We’ll call this one Deep Lite.
Julie and Julia by Julie Powell was also not the fluff I had anticipated. I was anticipating a self-congratulatory Pioneer Woman-esque story of lookit-me-I’m-so-awesome! I didn’t know anything about Julie Powell’s life or history, but learning where she was working at the time gave me a different understanding of why she started the Julie/Julia project. I enjoyed the blogging aspect, especially since blogging wasn’t anywhere near as popular when Julie started her project. The cooking managed to sound alternately (sometimes either simultaneously) delicious and disgusting, the people were all funny and (since they’re actual people, at least in theory) sometimes behaved unpredictably, and the project itself was inspiring. I loved that final stick of butter. Thoroughly enjoyable book.
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss was good as far as fantasy goes. It’s hard to impress me in that area, because I’ve read so much fantasy. I’m underwhelmed by the protagonist, Kvothe, because I find little to relate to with a character who is good (usually the best) at everything, all the time. The “I’m so gifted, everything comes to me naturally” trope is one of the most common in sci-fi/fantasy that it’s easy to predict the character’s personal arc: S/he’s the youngest ever to [do suchandsuch], s/he will lose or be separated from his/her parenst through a traumatic event, s/he is doubted until s/he makes a display of his/her talent that is both impressive and tricksy, his/her fatal flaw is pride in his/her amazing abilities and that leads to a loss of something s/he really wanted and will spend the rest of the book trying to craftily win back, all the while interacting with an unattainable love interest (which of course, we know is ultimately doomed — the question is only whether the love interest will die, turn out to be a bad guy, or be stolen/seduced by the bad guy). That’s almost every fantasy book, ever. It’s hard to sympathize with the ill treatment Kvothe receives from others as a response to his success, because it’s just so predictable. That antagonist (the jealous fellow student) isn’t well developed; he’s every jealous student/fellow mage/whatever in every fantasy book, with no good points. On the plus side, the larger story arc (the one that is obviously intended to go across the whole series) is much stronger; the world is richly developed, the magical system is quite good (based on thermodynamics, in part), and the writer’s use of language is enjoyable. I thought I would be more impressed by this than I was, because I’ve had it so highly recommended, but I think my standards for fantasy are higher than average. Perhaps that’s a result of being raised on Tolkien? I fully intend to read the other book(s) in the series, because now I’m invested in the story and want to see what happens, so I guess that’s a mark that this book was good enough.
