Hi there! I’m running a little behind with my spring reads post. Alas, life got away from me. However, I felt posting this in July would be better than not at all. I randomly decided to start a quarterly reading roundup earlier this year and really enjoyed writing the first of the series, but I haven’t been as engaged with my site lately and wasn’t sure I would come back to do another post for my spring reads. With social media being what it is today and thinking more than half the time of wanting to disengage entirely, I am always back and forth about whether or not I want to maintain this space. But, admittedly, I do feel like this may be the last frontier of my social media presence to potentially outlast all the others. That is a whole discussion for another time, though it did prompt me to come back and follow up with my spring reads.
Between March and May, I read another six books. My goal this year is to read two books per month, but I ended up reading three books in April, two books in May, and one book in June. I’m still on track with my annual goal, regardless, so all’s well.
Meredith, Alone by Claire Alexander
Read: 3/29/24 thru 4/16/24
Rating: 3 stars
When I initially picked up Meredith, Alone all I knew was that I wanted a quiet, introspective read. And Meredith’s narrative certainly offered that.
Meredith hasn’t left her home in 1,214 days. She spends her time baking, assembling jigsaw puzzles, freelance writing, participating in an online support group, and entertaining her inquisitive cat, Fred. The story shifts back in time to her difficult childhood and the upsetting event in her past that keeps her walled inside her home—physically, mentally, and emotionally. She wants so badly to rejoin the world, but every time she makes progress she is ambushed by the fear and anxiety holding her back.
I bought this book a few years ago when I was struggling with a rough bout of agoraphobia. It is not nearly so bad now and may not even exist for me at all anymore, but the pandemic took a toll, as it did for many of us, I’m sure. The idea of leaving my safe space at home never felt so colossal. I wanted my pre-pandemic perspective back, but I also wanted to stay inside where I could, essentially, hide away from my very existence. I thought this book would make a helpful companion to my own struggles. I loved that the big romance of the novel was the one she had in rediscovering her life. I’m always up for a romantic development, but I found this lens to be especially refreshing.
Jane & Edward by Melodie Edwards
Read: 4/18/24 thru 4/23/24
Rating: 4 stars
Jane & Edward is a modern-day reimagining of Jane Eyre, one of my favorite books since I was 17. It follows Jane Raine, a one-time orphan supporting herself working in a diner, who goes back to school to become a legal assistant. She finds early success hired to work with Edward Rosen, an obnoxious, tyrannical attorney, at a top Toronto law firm. His eclectic personality and demanding fits threaten her even-tempered composure. His behavior frustrates her at first, but slowly, slowly Edward chips away at her iron resolve.
I loved this rendition of the Jane Eyre story because it did not always follow the plot exactly. It very much became its own book by the end. It really felt more like Melodie Edwards was nodding to Charlotte BrontĂ«’s original work. I gave it 4 stars on Goodreads, but honestly, I could go back and give it the full 5 stars. This is definitely a book I want to buy a physical copy of at some point so I can read it again and actually hold it in my hands. That’s how much I loved this book. It made me laugh, it made me cry, it made my stomach do violent somersaults. It was everything I could’ve asked for and more. Sigh…
Shopgirl by Steve Martin
Read: 4/25/24 thru 4/29/24
Rating: 3 stars
I’ll be honest with you. I don’t really know how to describe Shopgirl. It’s an interesting novella that follows, Mirabelle, alongside an unlikable cast of cosmically deprived characters. Set in LA during the early aughts, we see Mirabelle ambling between her job selling gloves at a Neiman Marcus, her musty apartment where she timidly practices her love for art, and a floundering social scene that always leaves her underwhelmed. She struggles to feel a sense of belonging, even when she visits home during the holidays, and gravitates toward bad relationship after bad relationship to feel even the smallest semblance of intimacy.
This was a heavily character-driven narrative where the plot development seemed to rely on everyone having collective existential crises. Though I often found the characters cumbersome, Martin still kept me invested in their lives. They were flawed, for sure, but they grew.
I did empathize with Mirabelle a lot. I feel like there might be a version of myself much like her in some alternate universe somewhere. I admired the effort it took to leave her sheltered life and move to a big city like LA. What we fail to think about when taking those big leaps of faith is the landing. We think because we took a big risk we would be rewarded with a gentle fall, but it’s never that easy. Jumping is a risk that often ends in pain. We have to pick ourselves up, heal, carry on. Sometimes over and over. Then eventually—maybe, hopefully—we learn from the fall.
Would You Rather? by Allison Ashley
Read: 5/11/24 thru 5/13/24
Rating: 4 stars
In Would You Rather?, two friends decide to get married so the FMC can take advantage of the MMC’s insurance due to severe health issues that the FMC struggles to manage financially on her own. From the start, a horrible idea, right? But that’s what makes it so good, friends. There are a lot of suppressed feelings bee bopping around this book and with the potential for someone to find out about their scheme as their emotions are blitzing about like a couple of hormonal teenagers who find themselves living under the same roof, there is no shortage of entertainment, frustration, and deliciousness abounding in this story. Oh, the tension! It’s delectable.
I read this as an e-book on a beach trip, and did not want to put it down. I love romance novels like this because they’re almost irresponsibly indulgent. It’s like eating an entire carton of ice cream by yourself and feeling too satiated to care that your sugar rush will soon turn into a woeful crash. It’s a romance novel, after all, so of course it’s going to break your spirit a little bit, maybe even a few times, before it patches you back up and rewards you with a gratifying ending. Oh, the manufactured drama of it all! I don’t care. I love it.
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
Read: 5/14/24 thru 5/17/24
Rating: 5 stars
Sharp Objects follows the story of Camille Preaker, a small-time journalist who is tasked with covering the murders of two girls found peculiarly murdered in her hometown. Though she has little desire to return, she doesn’t want to disappoint her boss. So she travels back to her childhood home, where she is greeted by her thorny, painstakingly manicured, mother and her mother’s strange little family that Camille has never been a part of. She meets her younger half-sister for the first time and discovers that, though she shares a strong likeness with her mother, Camille may have more in common with her than she initially believes. But something isn’t right—not with her mother, not with her carbon-copy daughter, not with the town. Everyone has their own ideas about what happened to the girls and the only person who is even marginally willing to give her some perspective is an FBI detective she doesn’t know if she should trust.
This was my second Gillian Flynn novel after reading Gone Girl many years ago. As dark as that book was to me at the time, Sharp Objects was darker still. It was one of those books that kept me in a chokehold and would not let up. Just when you think you have an idea of what’s going on, well, you don’t. It kept me guessing the entire time, which I find to be an incredible feat for any writer, especially when murder is involved. At the end, I thought to myself, “Well, I can stop writing my own book now because it will never do THAT.” Alas…
Sleepwalking by Meg Wolitzer
Read: 5/20/24 thru 6/26/24
Rating: 3 stars
Sleepwalking is a campus novel that follows the life of Claire Danziger into a dark obsession with poet, Lucy Asher. Claire is one of three “death girls” at her school who gather at night, light candles, and commiserate over the lives, deaths, and works of their revered poets.
This book reminded me so much of myself when I was in college and I still cannot get over Meg Wolitzer writing this during her time as a student. As someone who also was writing a book at the start of her university matriculation, I’m impressed, and maybe even a little jealous, that Meg stuck it out, wrote the book, and went on to have it published at just 23 years old. My manuscript was left unfinished, though that was probably for the best.
What struck me as most relatable about Claire’s story specifically is just how easy it is to bury ourselves in our obsessions when life proves too sharp and indigestible. I can understand Claire losing herself in her obsession with Lucy Asher, because it is the very thing I used to do at that age and even younger. I didn’t know how to process my emotions, so I would redirect them toward implausible subjects. I would lose myself in things, people, daydreams. Like Claire, there were many times when I would struggle to come to terms with my reality, so much so that it could feel painful to focus, engage, pay attention to my life. It was hard to read at times because of just how much I could relate to it.
With that being said, the writing is beautiful and solid. I would recommend to any current or former English major crumbling under the pressures of societal expectations.
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Lauren Michelle Brock 