On the week that we heard from the school that we were all moving to distance learning to support social distancing, I signed up for a somewhat unusual book service: mytbr.co . I've been getting ads through Bookriot for it for a while and it always intrigued me. This is a service where people, they call them bibliologists, look at a person's interests, reading lists, and stated goals and then recommend them books.
On one level, I look at a thing like this and go - "I'm surrounded by books I need to get around to reading, why would I need someone to recommend me yet more books." Except, I get into ruts. I read the same, albeit large, group of authors and then I read the books that my students or friends recommend to me. Everything else is rather catch as catch can. So, on a completely different level, even though I'm sitting among piles of books, having someone recommend me books with the instructions of getting me out of my rut seems like an intriguing idea.
When faced by the prospect of weeks upon weeks of social distancing and isolation, I decided it was a good time to try it out and hopefully vary my reading menu. I signed up for the service, filled out the questionnaire, linked them to my goodreads profile and set about waiting. I did not wait patiently.
Two weeks later, my personal bibliologist, Amanda, sent me a letter with three recommendations in it. (If I was willing to pay more, they would have also sent me the books from an independent bookstore in Portland, ME, but I like sourcing my own books.) I had only vaguely heard of one of titles at all, through ads on bookriot, and they all sounded interesting. So far, so good. I've read all three of the books now.
The Woman in the Mirror by Rebecca James -This one (particularly the twist at the end) made my skin crawl, in a good way. It was recommended to me in part because I said in my form that I like gothic romances, and I do. (I just don't read them much any more.) True to the genre, it
is quite eerie. I found myself really liking both of the female protagonists: Alice and Rachel. Alice is so horribly tragic. She becomes a governess for a creepy set of twins (Edward and Constance) out in the isolated countryside in postwar Britain. Rachel is a modern day gallery owner who inherits by surprise the same estate that Alice works at. Both characters struggle with love in some way in this weird spooky house and are betrayed by the men they love. The juxtaposition of the two betrayals -- Alice being betrayed by Jonathan de Grey out of a twisted kindness and Aaron's betrayal of Rachel for decidedly nefarious reasons-- made for an interesting kind of contrast that gets the reader questioning the nature of the house's curse. Despite being a creepy twin, I loved how ultimately sympathetic Constance ended up being too.
Reading this had me thinking of Shirley Jackson's
The Haunting of Hill House. I'm going to have to go do a reread.
Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid - I plowed through this one pretty quickly and finished it feeling pretty pissed off and unsettled. Don't get me wrong it's a good book and an engaging story but I find the racial issues frustrating from all angles and at its core that's what this book is really about. Emira is black and is a nanny for a wealthy white family - the Chamberlains. Frankly, I found the treatment of Alix Chamberlain, the mother, completely unfair up until the second to last chapter where a flashback sort of turns the context of what is happening with her on its ear. I mean sure she was awkward, misguided, and self-deluded all the way through, but she came across as well intentioned for most of the book, if very cringe inducing to read. So watching her get shamed was very uncomfortable. Without the flashback in the second to last chapter, it just felt like I was watching a tragically insecure person getting bashed. That flashback changes everything; I wish it had been included earlier in the text. Having a more complete understanding of Alix's past actually changed the lense through which I viewed her and made her actions through the book both more tragic and more suspect. I like Emira but she just seemed so...passive most of the time. It seemed like she was being encouraged to be indignant and appalled by her friends when she didn't really feel that way and when her friends didn't really have the full picture.
It got under my skin - obviously. Good art does that, so mission achieved I guess. However, I can't honestly say I enjoyed it. I found it a valuable read because it challenged my thinking, which is always a good thing from time to time.
The Rook by Daniel O'Malley - This took me a good second to really get into and I can't imagine why because it is excellent. I already have
the Stiletto on the way to read. Myfanwy Thomas wakes up alone in the rain without her memory and a series of letters from her previous self (who apparently knew this was going to happen). The whole narrative is a process of the character figuring out what is going on. This felt like a spy novel set in a supernatural world. I liked the gritty feel of the world and how sassy Myfanwy was. O'Malley really didn't pull any punches with the violence or ick factor which is refreshing in something like this. It did get a little crazy how bizarrely lucky Myfanwy kept getting though.
The complexity of the world reminded me very much of the The Bone Season Series by Samantha Shannon.
All in all, this was a good set of recommendations. Two of the three were excellent. I really enjoyed them. The third was a good book, even if I didn't really enjoy it. I did have a strong emotional reaction to it partly because it does a good job of capturing the complexities of a problem that I personally find very frustrating. Whether or not I enjoyed reading it, it did do an excellent job with its material.
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