Welcome to the first of my monthly book reviews! For those of you who don’t know me, I read. A. Lot. My natural inclination is aided and abetted by a large number of hours spent commuting on the bus, which means I make it through a substantial number of books each month (I’ve read 30 so far this year). I love to talk about what I’m reading and I’m excited to bring this conversation to my blog so, without further ado, here are this month’s books.
Disclaimer: This post contains Amazon affiliate links. I make a (very) small referral commission for any purchases made using my links.
[one_half]
[/one_half][one_half_last]And the Mountains Echoed is a book that I enjoyed largely for the structure of the narrative. It’s a great example of a book that skillfully explores the ways in which human stories connect, across generations, decades, and continents. Because of its expansive timeline, the book has the opportunity to investigate how our pasts, our histories shape us, measuring the ripple-effect on human lives of choices made generations ago. I really liked this one, folks.
[/one_half_last]
[one_half]
[/one_half][one_half_last]Far and away the best book I read this month, The Orphan Master’s Son is a Pulitzer Prize winning novel about a North Korean man named Pak Jun Do, an orphan who grows up to lead an extremely improbable life. Both stunning and at times viscerally horrifying, the novel is a haunting and artful portrayal of a country and a culture so far removed from my own experience I find it hard to imagine. This was a fantastic book and I highly recommend it.
[/one_half_last]
[one_half]
[/one_half]
[one_half_last]After reading and adoring Brene Brown’s most recent book, Daring Greatly
. I was eager to get my hands on her previous book, The Gifts of Imperfection. Unfortunately, I suspect I should have read them in the reverse order, since much of the material is similar between the two books. Of the two, I’d say read Daring Greatly and maybe don’t bother with The Gifts of Imperfection unless you’re really looking for actionable strategies and more concrete direction on how to implement the ideas from Daring Greatly in your own life.[/one_half_last]
[one_half]
[/one_half][one_half_last]I’m definitely more than a little late to the party on this one, but I picked this up from the library last week and wound up devouring it in less than a day. Great literature The Fault in Our Stars is not, but enjoyable YA fiction it most certainly is. With interesting characters and a somewhat more literary bent than most YA fiction, this is a story that I definitely enjoyed. Fair warning though: the end made me cry.[/one_half_last]
[one_half]
[/one_half][one_half_last]This is the one I tried but didn’t finish. I wanted to like it; The Flamethrowers was a National Book Award finalist, and I can’t quibble with the quality of the writing itself, but I just couldn’t get into it. I didn’t find any of the characters to be particularly compelling or relatable, and the story meanders through different places and points in time without any real sense of direction. Whereas And the Mountains Echoed was a brilliant example of how stories can be connected and woven across time and place, The Flamethrowers falls flat. I do, however, have to give a shout out to Rachel Kushner’s prose, because there are moments of brilliance in the book— just not enough to keep my interest.
[/one_half_last]
Have you read any of these? Got a great book recommendation for my reading list? Let me know in the comments below!
Tired of waiting for my monthly wrap-ups? I talk about what I’m reading each week in my email newsletter.