january reading log
what i read
The first books I read this year I already wrote about. They were underwhelming, save for S.A. Cosby’s gritty “All the Sinners Bleed.” I felt unimpressed with the first 7 books I read this year. So much so that I couldn’t help but wonder if I was devoid of taste completely! Like, why couldn’t I pick up and read something better? I have a stack of books I’ve been dying to read — new, glossy, hardcovers, galleys I’ve been anticipating for ages, classics that are new to me… And yet! And don’t even ask me about how many unread PDFs are sitting on my Kindle, gathering digital dust.
Well, the rut is over. In fact, I think I’ve already read what I think might be the best memoir of the year.
Splinters by Leslie Jamison: If you’re going to preorder anything this year, make it this one. This is a pandemic story, but not like that. It’s the story of a marriage unraveling. It’s the story of motherhood. It’s the story of the birth of a child and the simultaneous death of a marriage. Jamison’s voice is startlingly vulnerable, raw, honest. She traces the cracks in her marriage to their origins, reflecting on her own upbringing as a child of divorce and comparing where she’s been to where she is now. I read the memoir on my iPad but will be picking up a hardcopy.
The Shards by Bret Easton Ellis: Very Bret Easton Ellis. This could be good or bad, depending on your preferences. I ate this shit up. Autofiction is getting old but Bret singlehandedly brought it back with this one. It’s about a total sociopath! An absolute psycho! It’s about identity and sexuality and psychology. This book is cuckoo. It’s obsessive and frenetic and floating. I’m so homesick for California and this book is dripping with all things Los Angeles that it temporarily cured me. Avoid if you don’t care about name dropping or rich teenagers doing quaaludes or L.A. geography. Ellis could have cut 100 pages, and the ending could have packed more of a punch, but I read this feverishly.
Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton: The girls go crazy for Dolly. I’m girls. My introduction to Dolly was her debut novel, Ghosts, which I go crazy for, but, surprisingly, I had never read her memoir. My review of the memoir is that if I read it at 22, it would have changed my life (complimentary). I wasn’t blown away, but I wonder if this one of those books that hits different when you’re staring down the barrel of 30?
Worry by Alexandra Tanner: This comes out in March. It’s set in New York and about two sisters-turned-roommates. It’s very The Guest, very Happy Hour, very All-Night Pharmacy, which is to say it’s riddled with anxiety and depression and complaints and spirals. It’s contemporary and claustrophobic, which, for me, is a good thing. I loved the dynamic between these sisters, the push/pull of loving/hating, of not being able to live with/not being able to live without. Complicated family relationships and mommy issues are at the forefront, and I couldn’t resist how one sister self soothes via hate stalking Mormon mommy bloggers.