Yes, Maybe, No?: Some Fiction Reviews

Dropping back in for #87

Here’s the problem with writing a book recommendation newsletter, and reading books with a velocity and voracity that most people reserve for Useful Life Activities like “home maintenance” or “self-improvement” or “nurturing relationships”:

You end up reading a lot of books that are … just okay. Fine? But not the best? And then, like when you get to the bottom of a bag of salt & vinegar chips, you end up feeling vaguely satiated but also slightly greasy and maybe a little malnourished, without total recall of how you got there and no experience that you could wholeheartedly recommend. I WANT to share only excellent books but sometimes, babycakeses, that’s just not what’s on the menu. Do you feel me? (AH YES HAVE YOU MISSED MY MANY, VARIED and SOMEWHAT TORTURED METAPHORS lo these two weeks?)

That’s why this week’s newsletter is a blend of recent reads: books I really enjoyed, books I’m not sure about, and just for fun, a book I wanted to fully enjoy and just didn’t. Mayhaps you will find this honest assessment valuable in your reading journeys!

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Yes! Quite a Bit, Yes!

I picked up The Latecomer expecting a thriller/mystery like the author’s last book, The Plot (which I found a little predictable but very thought-provoking. Worth reading!) Much to my surprise, which it shouldn’t have been if I’d done the barest amount of pre-research but whatever, The Latecomer is about an estranged family of siblings who somewhat refreshingly loathe each other, their late-in-life sibling, and the secrets and identities that bind them to each other and their parents. Both because of the plot and the writing, it feels timeless (could be set in the 50s) while also feeling necessarily contemporary. It’s briskly confident, scathingly funny, and so well-written. A yes from me, dog!

(I’m sorry. I’m sorry I used that overly trodden, 20-year-old reference. We both deserve better.)

(What are lamb ratings, you ask? Find out here.)

Maybe. Probably? I dunno.

I adored Doerr’s Pulitzer-Prize winning All The Light We Cannot See and after hearing his keynote at the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference, I committed to reading / loving Cloud Cuckoo Land, which follows a mythical text from Constantinople through the Korean War through present day Idaho to future-state space travelers.

And, so - okay, listen.

There’s a lot to recommend: it’s deeply readable, hugely ambitious in scope but still trackable, intimidatingly stuffed with references and research, and profoundly immersive. You really live in each of these characters’ worlds. Not to mention, it’s basically a love letter to storytelling and its power to unite us, which is noble.

For me, though, it didn’t coalesce to a great reading experience. The throughline of climate/political catastrophe suffuses the entire book with dread, and some of this knife’s-edge of “the world is ending/the world hasn’t ended yet!” didn’t gel for me. I also didn’t feel like the story fragments, while impressive, all coalesced, while at the same time finding the Moral of the Story presented in heavy handed way. I don’t know - it’s great but it wasn’t great for me. Maybe you will love it!

Surprisingly, Yes!

Okay, here’s a war book that’s dark and violent - not my usual fare - and yet it’s a “yes”! City of Thieves follows two Russian prisoners during the Nazi siege of Leningrad. Rather than being executed for their crimes, they’re given the impossible task to find a dozen eggs for a colonel’s daughter’s wedding, as a way to buy their freedom. The book follows them over a freezing, starving, tortured week as they try to save themselves, each other, and the people they encounter.

At times a brutal war story, at times a darkly funny buddy tale, and at times a traditional fable, this is a richly drawn story about men, and the world of men, that still resonated with me as a great story. (Also maybe you’ll like it ‘cause the author is the show runner for Game of Thrones which I never watched? YES, I KNOW. I also never watched The Wire, Breaking Bad, or The Sopranos. Am I even culturally literate at this point?) Thanks for the recommendation, Conor!

Eh. Maybe?

I was eager for Just By Looking At Him, much ballyhooed by the book community as a dark comedy / bildungsroman about a gay male TV writer with cerebral palsy, coming to terms with the inauthentic life he’s built around himself and his perspective on his own disability. And it is a POV that you don't read every day, from the way his CP affects his relationships and his self-esteem, to his complicated experience with a sex worker, to his discovery of personal and professional self-worth. So that’s cool.

It’s well-written but had a little too much of the TV-writer “joke for joke’s sake” asides that work well in fast-paced dialogue but feel a little cheap here. And maybe it’s unfair for me to say, but the experience came across unevenly, like the author was trying to work out his own stuff on the page, rather than channeling his lived experience into a fully-realized work. So - it’s just a maybe/meh/ “it was fine” in my opinion.

Sadly, no, and we need to talk about this

There needs be a truth universally acknowledged that as a mystery writer gets popular and churns out multiple books a year, their work generally gets more formulaic and even worse - it becomes generic and hollow, like the authors themselves are deeply uninspired. It happened with Robert B. Parker, it happened with Patricia Cornwell, it happened with Jonathan Kellerman and it gives me absolutely no pleasure to report that it is happening with Harlan Coben, in this standalone mystery The Match as well as his recent Myron Bolitar book, Win. (Elizabeth George and Tana French are still solid, FOR NOW.)

Look. No one is expecting season nine of a sitcom to bring you anything especially innovative, but is it too much to ask for a spark in the elements you love? Can the dialogue not stay witty? Can the interpersonal relationships not have earned depth? Can the plot not evolve, rather than be explained in a series of expository confessions?

Anyway, you can skip this one. But do check out Coben’s early Myron Bolitar books, which are smart and funny mysteries.

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