Reading Update: August

A is for August and also for Abby Jimenez

Hallo, it's me, Laura King. August was a busy month in a lot of ways, and a sitting around month in others - ie, The Plague visited my house several times over the weeks, with different people testing positive at different points. Still, it was a great month with a beautiful wedding to start and a lovely trip with pals to Killarney towards the end. I sadly didn't get to do any local book shopping but I did take a gorgeous solo walk through the National Park to see Library Point and had a really special little reading break there (as you can see).

The month was bookended by two great live shows, Little Shop of Horrors at the Board Gais and The Lunch Punch Power Hour in Conference Room 4 on the Peacock stage at the Abbey Theatre. Add to that mix CMAT releasing a banger of an album, Taylor Swift making announcement after announcement, and my ever growing obsession with the novels of Abby Jimenez, I have been having A Nice Time despite the bouts of isolation!

Now that we are well into September, I'm finished my summer reading list (shocked that I managed to stick to it, pictured below), I'm facing into my self titled Nora Ephron Autumn (some of her writing and films as well as more rom coms and I'm making a sweater vest and hopefully very witty remarks too).

On a more serious note, I will also be donating £2 for each book I read in September as part of Read for Palestine (co organised by my friend ReadsByRoss), which has already reached a brilliant level of support for Dignity for Palestinians, and you can find out more about the fundraiser and their readalong here: https://substack.com/@readforpalestine?r=6a63nc&utm_medium=ios&fbclid=PAVERTVgMqHAZleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABp0KkttSJJpx3nidgqd0ooXUd43X9N95jomrAZavWpUynWHDp9tDLNK4PcNZM_aem_l6vwA_xDjAOiONRuTo6wTw

But now, back to August!

Run Out and Read

Part of Your World by Abby Jimenez is the first in a series, continuing with Yours Truly and then Just for the Summer (which I read last month), and I wished I'd read them in order for full effect but they are about different characters all connected through the same Minnesota hospital. This novel follows Alexis, a doctor and heir to the family's hospital and long legacy, who is in the process of separating from her abusive ex boyfriend when she breaks down in a small town and is helped by the young, handsome mayor, Daniel. This book is cosy in places, emotional in others, and definitely puts the comedy in romantic comedy, which was needed after the good but downer Say You'll Remember Me. I loved this novel so, so much, and this is a must read for any fans of romance fiction. I'd love to devote more time to diving into her work here, but perhaps I'll finish the rest of her novels first!

Highly Recommended

In Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado uses magical realism skillfully to channel a very real, present anger towards patriarchal society at all levels, but I was also very angry at myself for not reading this when it came out as it feels like such an important product of that very specific moment in time, and it would have met me right at the exact point where I would have appreciated it - full of righteous rage and high off reading Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber, which is a very clear influence on this book. So, there was a timing issue for me but I think this book deserves the cult following it has already amassed, and while a lot of people have since tried to emulate Machado, she really is a singular talent and someone I will read again in a heartbeat whenever they next publish.

Coming in November, Maggie Nelson’s essay in book form is called The Slicks, comparing the work of Sylvia Plath with Taylor Swift’s 2024 album The Tortured Poets Department, both viewed through the lens of their naked ambition and thirst for fame (complimentary). I adored this treatment of both artists as well as how cleverly Nelson uses not only poetry and lyrics but visual media and, importantly, contemporary critical reception. This essay was presumably written with me in mind as the ideal audience.

Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez is less of a bridge between Part of Your World and Just for the Summer than a lovely scenic route, and the romance between Brianna and Jacob blossoms at the same hospital where Alexis and later Emma work. Brianna is going through a tough enough time with a recent divorce and brother getting sick when she makes a new work enemy Jacob, who she thinks is out to steal her job but really is minding his own business getting over his own heartbreak. Writing letters to one another in work helps them get over their original preconceptions about each other, and this is a really useful way for us to get to know such guarded, private characters, a fun spin on the usual initial acts of a romcom.

The Pumpkin Eater by Penelope Mortimer is a slim volume that manages to delve deeply into the psyche of a very vulnerable woman while still maintaining a lovely light touch and often humorous tone of voice. In some ways the details of the book are kept vague, in others I felt unbearably close to the protagonist and my heart broke for her over and over. Still, it's a really enjoyable read and strangely funny in places. I could have read much more of it but as always I admire a novel for being succinct and restrained while leaving the reader wanting more.

Young Anne by Dorothy Whipple is about a girl growing into womanhood, born just at the end of the nineteenth century near Lancaster, sort of floating through the various stages of her life - at a chaotic village school, as the only Protestant student at the convent she has to move to, to unpaid companion to secretary to young wife. The structure is fairly generic, and nothing dramatic happens (the First World War barely registers, to be honest) but it's so compelling and Whipple's genius is in what is not explicitly said.

Say You'll Remember Me by Abby Jimenez is definitely a book designed to pull on your heart strings - Samantha meets Xavier, a grumpy vet she visits with her rescue kitten on the day before she is due to move 2,000 miles away to help care for her mother with dementia, and their instant connection is tinged with sadness that they can't be together.

I really liked Samantha and Xavier, and their connection felt real and seemed authentic to what I can only imagine their reality would be like, curtailed by distance, responsibilities and means, though this is admittedly overstated to the point that I laughed inappropriately at a few overwrought passages.

Recommended

The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century by Olga Ravn is a work of science fiction told via snippets from interviews by a futuristic workplace of their human and non human crew. Aboard the Six-Thousand there are people and robots who give their statements of what it is like to work on the ship, particularly since they picked up some strange objects from another planet, which begin to remind them of a long gone "home". This is a commentary on workplace culture, especially workplace "wellness" to be sure, but also an interesting exploration of humanity and work at the dawn of AI "employees", at a time where people are praised for their optimisation and productivity and AI is praised for being human like.

Long Story by Vicki Notaro is an ideal beach read, full of messy friendships and group dynamics and showbiz glamour, much like her first novel Reality Check. This novel is about two best friends, an actress and a podcaster, and the only man who has ever managed to come between them. As with Reality Check, the audiobook narrator Stephanie Dufrayne really brings the gossipy, humorous tone to life.

Fun and Games by John Patrick McHugh has been recommended to me a lot, a first novel from an Irish author with shades of the early chapters of Normal People by Sally Rooney. The narrator, John, is waiting out his last summer living on Achill Island before he escapes to the mainland for college, and about the casual fling with his coworker at his summer job that he wants to keep a secret. It is painful to read, but because McHugh really captures the self consciousness and selfishness of adolescence so well.

Cursed Daughters, coming 25th September, is the long awaited second novel from Oyinkan Braithwaite, and is a very different feeling book than the much acclaimed My Sister the Serial Killer. Whereas My Sister the Serial Killer was a dark comedy that kept readers on the edge of their seats, Cursed Daughters is a slower moving story that builds a sense of unease through the unravelling of a family story, told over three distinct story lines and interwoven with callbacks from generations that came before. It's definitely an interesting premise, and an interesting way of telling an odd, uncanny story but perhaps wasn't the novel I expected from Braithwaite - which perhaps is my own problem, as well as the curse of the second novel!

Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder is about the stay at home mother of a baby boy who turns into a dog at night. There's really no other way to say it, especially as this becomes clear in the early pages of the novel, but the story isn't really about the transformation but rather about the changes to personhood and womanhood that occur after childbirth. It's about trauma following childbirth for sure, but also about grappling with the loss of an old way of life, and the retreat into isolation and a world of two, her and her baby. It's mostly, however, a book about wanting things for yourself, and how selfish people are made to feel for that, how monstrous, and “what a beautiful type of monstrosity”. This would have made an excellent short story or even novella, but I don't believe it should have been a novel.

Did not finish/not for me

The Last Thing He Wanted by Joan Didion - definitely not an audiobook read, I'll try again another time!

Currently Reading as of 1st September:

Physical: The Doll’s Alphabet by Camilla Grudova

EBook: What We Shall Know by Ian McEwan

Audiobook: The Friend Zone by Abby Jimenez

Thank you for reading, and I hope you join me soon for another installment of LauraEatsBooks.