What I Read in December
December is a wonderful reading month, with the Christmas décor up, hot cocoa flowing, and the cold weather making me want to cuddle up all day. I hope 2020 was good to you reading-wise!
Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
4/5 Stars
An entertaining romance between the fictional first son of the US and the prince of England.
Charming and heartwarming read, although compared to the 2020 political landscape, it reads a little too quaint to be realistic. I liked the love connection and was rooting for them, and I think the racial and class tensions were well thought out. One minor thing though: The White House Trio was the best name they could come up with? I mean, I wouldn't have thought anything of it if the author hadn't specifically mentioned it was sample group tested and optimized for hashtagging...like that was the catchiest name, huh?
Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
4/5 Stars
A plague story of Shakespeare’s wife and the death of their son, Hamnet.
This is one of my favorite historical novels. The writing is divine; the fact that O'Farrell could render a flea's journey to be so riveting says so much about her talent. The extremely detailed world and the heart-wrenching emotion made this book a masterpiece. I also have to say that I usually don't like character-driven novels, because nothing much happens in them. Honestly, nothing much happens in this book either (apart from the death we already can see coming) but it says so much about the author's abilities that I still hung on to every word.
I do have two nitpicks that docked a star for me: one is that the writing got TOO descriptive at times, so much that things became repetitive. There was a line like "she looked like she was trying to decipher what she was seeing, as if trying to work something out." Like, yeah, that's what the word decipher means, you can just say it one way or the other. There were enough of those instances that I had that "ok we get it, move on" reaction a lot. The other thing is that I like my titles to be tied to what the book is actually about. I may be old-fashioned in that, but I was expecting this to be Hamnet's story because of the title. But the book isn't really about him, it's about Agnes. So just call it Agnes. I know it's weird, but I started the book with the expectation that this was to be Hamnet's story, and because of that, I kept resisting what the book was actually about.
His Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medie
4/5 Stars
Afi is plucked out of poverty to marry a wealthy man in his family’s scheme to break him apart from his mistress.
I really enjoyed this. Such juicy drama and an interesting setup. I have to say the first 50 pages were slow for me, but after that, I was fully absorbed in the plot. I found myself seeing both sides of the central issue, and that's always a great sign in my opinion.
I wanted this book to be twice as long. On the one hand, I love a book that flies by, but on the other, I just wanted more. I wanted more Eli, more secrets and twists with Aunty and the Gonyos, more confrontation with Muna, more development with Selorm and how he was impacted. And more Ivy (was she ever really sick? Is it implied that that was just a lie?). It just ended too soon, the pacing was too fast; years would pass, but it didn't feel like it. And then the ending came so suddenly; I wanted to explore the fallout more. Maybe there will be a sequel? But overall, this is a book I would definitely recommend!
Circe by Madeline Miller
3/5 Stars
A Greek goddess is banished to a remote island and turns to mortals for help.
It started off strong: the world building was solid, the voice is solid. But about halfway through, the plot really sagged. The main issue for me is that Circe is not in control of the plot; she's banished to this island where people randomly land out of nowhere, with no buildup to it. Things happen to Circe, rather than her having any agency or propelling the plot forward herself, and that's what was so frustrating to me. She's not even trying to get off the island like other castaway stories. I struggled to find any throughline that would tie the book together, so this was a bummer.
Untamed by Glennon Doyle
1/5 Stars
The self-help book I definitely didn’t want. If you want a good long rant, feel free to check out my full review on Goodreads.
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
3.5/5 Stars
Mixed race twin sisters grow up together but live vastly different adult lives, one as a working class black woman and the other passing as a white woman in a prime neighborhood. One day, their daughters happen to meet and discover the truth about their heritage.
I loved the first half of this book and really connected with the question of racial identity as a mixed race person myself. However, the second half lagged and was anticlimactic. There was no major plot twist, things didn't come crashing down, and overall it just felt too safe. I wanted the characters to be pushed further, but they were let off the hook, in my opinion.
Still, Brit Bennett is an amazing author! This book touches on deep issues of race, gender, and class, and I think works well as a book club pick where you can discuss these themes more in depth.
Hillbilly Elegy by J. D. Vance
5/5 Stars
The memoir of a self-described hillbilly from Appalachia and his journey to the Ivy League.
This was a depressing yet enlightening read about how poor, white Appalachians have been left behind as America strives toward economic and social progress.
I have to say, I brought my own liberal/middle class/higher educated/non-white bias to this, and I had to remind myself it was first and foremost a memoir of one individual's experience, not a treatise on how to solve a deep-rooted and complex crisis.
I did come away with a somewhat better understanding of how the crisis came to be, but no insight into how to solve it. To put it another way, I don't know what to do with this information.
The one blindside of this book, which I've seen voiced by other readers, is race. There is almost no discussion on the privilege of simply being white, period. Reading this after the huge BLM movement of 2020, I found this frustrating. However, the author is not trying to claim poor whites have it worse than poor people of color. It is simply to show they are struggling too, and that paints a sad portrait of the richest country on earth.
The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner
3/5 Stars
An eclectic group of people band together to preserve the former home of Jane Austen.
It was fine. If you're an Austen fan, you'll appreciate the characters all discussing her work. I thought the plot was a little tame, though. If you want an easy read, go with this.
What Happens in Paradise by Elin Hilderbrand
2/5 Stars
Book 2 of a trilogy wherein a wealthy widow goes to the US Virgin Islands to discover the double life her husband led before his untimely death.
I was hoping this series would get a little juicier in book 2, but I have to say, it's still pretty tame to me. It just feels like we haven't scratched the surface of these characters, like I don't really know them that well. Maybe that's the downside to having so many characters.
The main plot of Russ and his secret life is moving so. slow. Like there's no movement. I would describe this plot as a family moving to St. John and finding jobs and making friends, and verrrrry secondarily investigating the mystery of Russ's death.
Lastly, all the name dropping of restaurants and menu items got annoying. I get Elin has a personal connection to the island and I'm sure knows all these places and wants to pay them lip service, but it was way over the top. It got to be comical, like that SNL skit The Californians where they name all the highways.
