The 13 Books I Read in January
I did not set out to read 13 books this month, and never before have I read 13 books in one month! I've organized them loosely into categories, but beyond that they are presented in no particular order.
I. EXPERIMENTAL
I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself, Marisa Crane
When Kris’ wife Beau dies giving birth to their daughter, Kris has to face raising the baby on her own. She is also a persecuted member of a dystopian society: anyone “convicted” (there is no due process) of causing bodily harm to another is assigned a second shadow so everyone will know criminals on sight. Kris was assigned a second shadow years ago—and, because Beau died in delivery, the baby is assigned one too. Kris does her best to raise a brilliant child alone in a surveillance-heavy society that has set them both up to fail.
This book might work for you if: you like slow-moving meditations on grief and healing from loss. This is also a great example of an unconventional narration style: for the most part, the novel is told in paragraph-long vignettes that create a wonderful stream-of-consciousness style. It is incredibly evocative; it also jumps ahead of months or years at a time without a sense of fragmentation, since the fragmentation is built into the narration.
This book might not be for you if: loss of a spouse and/or death in childbirth are no-go zones for you. It’s also a book about state oppression that centres its effects on white people; the book is self-aware about this, but that self-awareness isn’t flawlessly rendered. Meanwhile, the first half of the book is about grief, and it takes a long time to get to healing—there was a point where I wasn’t sure I was going to finish the book because of how potent the misery was. This became a highlight—it made the arc feel incredibly earned—but the heaviness is a lot to get through.
Similar reads: Our Wives Under the Sea, Julia Armfield; No One Is Talking About This, Patricia Lockwood
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Y/N, Esther Yi
Our unnamed protagonist enters a kpop rabbit hole; she ultimately leaves her life in Berlin behind to track down her idol in Seoul after he abruptly retires following a public breakdown on stream. In truth, the book is about how the unrelenting social media landscape—increasingly personal and increasingly impersonal—leads to a dissolution of personal identity and individual desire both for people who rely on self-promotion in their work and for their spectators.
This book might work for you if: you’re interested in a deeply absurdist tone and would respond well to a narration’s satirical tendency to render subtext textually. This is a very creative narrative lens with enough layers to leave me thinking about it long after I’ve finished it.
This book might not be for you if: you’re looking for realistic dialogue, plot, or character arcs. This is a work of satire to a high degree; it’s an exercise in textualizing subtext in poetic / romantic terms without the words being grounded in anything. I found it a very difficult book to make sense of; I read an interview with the author partway through reading it to help guide my analysis. The book also lingers in scenes that feel overlong for the sake of externalizing themes, which may grow tiresome for some readers.
Similar books: I really hunted for a comp but the best I’m going to be able to do is to give you a few of this book’s grandparents: If Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 met City of Saints and Madmen by Jeff Vandermeer met Big Swiss by Jen Beagin.
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There’s No Such Thing As An Easy Job, Kikuko Tsumura
This is a mundane work novel with a twist: We follow a woman with burnout who quit her stressful career and now wants a job that takes as little out of her as possible. The book is structured in five vignettes in five successive jobs, each a little more social and weirder than the last. As the circumstances of her job get more unusual, our protagonist finds herself reaching out to connect more and more to the world around her.
This book might work for you if: You like slow but steady narratives. This might work especially well if you like work novels that explore the alienation and mundanity of work in the 21st century. This is also, arguably, a work of suspense: it’s hard to tell if any of the strange goings on are mundane or speculative, and that question was a major part of what kept me compelled.
This book might not be for you if: You need a lot of plot or propulsion. Especially in the early sections, things move very slowly. If you don’t like this book by the second story, it’s probably not going to improve for you. I also think the ending could be hit-or-miss—it’s a bit pat and saccharine, though it worked for me.
Similar books: In style and pace, this reminded me of Newcomer by Keigo Higashino. I haven’t read it, but comps to Sayaka Murata’s Convenience Store Women seem accurate.
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II. OTHER GENRE FICTION
Mammoths at the Gates, Nghi Vo
In the fourth book of the Singing Hills series, we follow Chih as they return to their home abbey for the first time in several years. There they are reunited with old friends and, in mourning a mentor who has recently passed, hears stories from those who loved their mentor—and those their mentor once abandoned.
This book might work for you if: You like stories about storytelling. My favourite in this series was the second book, When the Tigers Came Down the Mountain, for what it revealed about how different perspectives on a story can fundamentally change the text; this entry had a very similar effect. Chih’s mentor had an overwhelmingly positive effect on those they met at the abbey, but there was a family left behind who sends shockwaves, literal and figurative, through the abbey in their quest for answers. This series works best for people who enjoy these metanarratives.
This book might not be for you if: You haven’t read previous entries in the series; I think the cumulative effect is the most successful. Though there’s nothing wrong with reading this book standalone, there is a recurring character whose impact is most felt with context.
Similar reads: It’s hard to find the kind of stories about storytelling Vo excels at, but for similar novella concepts, try Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water, Zen Cho; Burning Roses, S.L. Huang
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White Nights, Ann Cleeves
I have watched all of Shetland, and now I am reading all of Shetland: in this volume, Perez investigates the murder of an amnesiac who crashes his girlfriend’s art show and accidentally winds up investigating a decades-old disappearance in the process.
This book might work for you if: you like tame little police procedurals set in a tame little context. Perez’s detective work mainly looks like asking questions to people while drinking coffee in their homes; everyone offers information freely, and also everyone has secrets. It’s silly! They are good mysteries. The books are also different enough from the show that I’m finding it a solidly and delightfully different experience; this volume in particular does not appear in the show at all.
This book might not be for you if: you’re off media centering cops. I like to joke about Perez’s detective work but it’s only by the sheer cooperative tendencies of the islanders that he manages to be cast as a nice enough guy. These are also very slow mysteries; they are not thrilling on any metric.
Similar books: Malice, Keigo Higashino; The Searcher, Tana French.
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III. LITERARY / CONTEMPORARY FICTION
Sorrow and Bliss, Meg Mason
Martha has struggled with a seemingly undiagnosable mental illness since she was 17, and it has methodically wreaked havoc on her life. Now, at 40, it is wreaking havoc on her marriage. We follow Martha’s journey from early years to the present day, when she finally receives a diagnosis and treatment—but that doesn’t mean her life is fixed.
This book might work for you if: You enjoy frank reads about severe depression told through a comedic, nihilist lens. Martha’s sister, a major supporting character, has a wicked sense of humour, and the humour is a major reason why this book works so well. Martha is miserable, but her life is not pure, driven misery; she has a complicated and deeply flawed but supportive family who helps her through, and it’s wonderful to see a skillful, complex, and careful depiction of mental illness where levity and support are a constant.
This book might not be for you if: You struggle with themes of suicidality in fiction—I would not recommend this book to anyone currently in crisis. It is a very heavy book. The lighthearted, nihilistic tone may also be mistaken for making light of a serious condition at times, which may put off some readers.
Similar reads: Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman is a frequent comp for this title, for understandable reasons; both are irreverent books about offbeat English women trying to find their place in the world. Valencia and Valentine by Suzy Krause is another good pick on this basis. All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews is a more sober story about severe mental illness, told from the sister’s perspective.
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Jonny Appleseed, Joshua Whitehead
Two-spirit Jonny has been called back home to the reservation to support his mother after his step-father dies. He hasn’t been back in years; as he spends a week amassing enough money as a cyber sex worker to get home from Winnipeg, he reflects on his childhood, particularly on his close relationships with his mother and kokum (grandmother) while being young, queer, and Indigenous.
This book might work for you if: you like coming-of-age stories about queer Indigenous youth with strong but complex family ties, and you won’t shy away from the sexually explicit. The vignette / confessional style of the narration is incredibly compelling. Like other favourites on this list, the story masterfully balances heavy with poignant with funny with bittersweet. I loved Jonny’s voice, and the way chapters often ended on a joke or a zinger lended a ton to Jonny’s character.
This book might not work for you if: you need a strong plot to drive you through a book. The vignette style means the book is easily excerpted; in places it feels like a series of related short stories rather than a novel because the Western narrative drive has not been prioritized. Jonny’s story is told non-linearly, which means there’s some degree of repetition and a feeling of retreading familiar ground.
Similar books: A History of My Brief Body, Billy Ray Belcourt; Indian Horse, Richard Wagamese; A Mind Spread Out on the Ground, Alicia Elliot. Whitehead’s essay collection, Making Love with the Land, is also excellent.
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The Story of the Lost Child, Elena Ferrante
The fourth in the Neapolitan series follows Elena and Lila as they pass through concurrent pregnancies, leave or settle with their partners, and each give birth to girls as each woman pursues her career with different vigor. Elena returns to the neighbourhood she pledged never to live in again and finds her roots there, for better or worse.
This book might work for you if: you, like me, got sucked in by the stream-of-consciousness style and interpersonal drama this series offers. This book made me so nuts I had to set it aside for several months before I could return to it with some distance.
This book might not be for you if: you haven’t read previous books in the series, but particularly if you haven’t read Book 3; the series is a 1700-page novel and scarcely four books at all. I also found the conclusion a bit anticlimactic after all of those pages. The book itself was as good as the rest, but if you’re looking for a satisfying ending, this may not provide.
Similar books: Fight Night, Miriam Toews; Conversations with Friends, Sally Rooney.
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Now Is Not the Time to Panic, Kevin Wilson
Two offbeat 16-year-olds, Frankie (a writer) and Zeke (an artist), team up to make a poster boasting a nonsense manifesto and paper it all over town. The poster goes viral, triggering a moral panic; what had begun as artistic fun quickly develops both personal and community consequences.
This book might work for you if: You like slice-of-life narratives. If the idea of an “analog” meme going viral before the internet compels you, this book does that well.
This book might not be for you if: Reading books about teens that’s targeted to adults doesn’t quite land for you—the coming-of-age stuff was cute to read about but may not compel everyone. The author also leaves a note at the end of the book contextualizing how personal this book was to him—that sense of the book’s deeply personal meaning is felt throughout, and not all readers may connect to it.
Similar books: The Pallbearer’s Club, Paul Tremblay. I also think this is a good match for habitual readers of Stephen King’s teenaged protagonists.
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IV. NONFICTION
These Precious Days, Ann Patchett
I did not know Ann Patchett was an essayist—this wound up being the first of two nonfiction books I read by her this month. I love the casual gravitas she brings to writing of any kind. There was a pair of essays in here about her friendship with Sooki that gutted me intensely. It’s about grief, it’s about privilege, it’s about her three dads and her doctor husband who has a plane-buying problem. Every essay is written fantastically.
This book might work for you if: you like well written, wending essays that will surprise you. The titular essay begins as a story about how she happened to meet Tom Hanks because she liked his novel; the story is not about Tom Hanks. I picked this up for its reflections on family and relationships, and it did not disappoint.
This book might not be for you if: you don’t love essays that are a bit mild and irreverent in tone. Also might be worth giving this a miss if reflections on COVID from a white woman with enough money to enable her husband to buy a whole-ass airplane rub you the wrong way. There is an admittedly very touching scene where he flies an immunocompromised friend to visit her mother in June of 2020, but not everything in this volume qualifies as relatable.
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Truth & Beauty, Ann Patchett
A memoir about Patchett’s friendship with poet Lucy Greely. This is a somewhat controversial account of Lucy’s struggle with self-image, surgeries, and addiction in the wake of the bone cancer she had contracted as a child.
This book might work for you if: you like stories about flawed, intense friendships with people unlike those we tend to meet in our own lives. Lucy is a larger-than-life character, and Patchett’s descriptions of their friendship was so unlike any friendship I have experienced—could ever experience—in life that I found it a fascinating glimpse into the lives and propensities of people unlike myself.
This book might not be for you if: You struggle with memoirs about someone else’s addiction, or with the idea of reading a memoir that Greely’s family disapproves of. Greely does not come off necessarily well; certainly she is flawed, and Patchett does not shy away from that. It may seem strange for someone Patchett purports to love so deeply to have a book written about her that casts her as quite the catastrophe.
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Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer
This is a firsthand account / horror story of the Everest disaster of 1996, featuring a bunch of people who tempted God by climbing the world’s tallest mountain, which hates them. It is a roughly true story. The best part is when the author doubles back on his own narrative and starts to uncover his own unreliability caused by HYPOXIA on account of how you can’t BREATHE on MOUNT EVEREST. This was a reread for me and it made me less insane than the first time, which feels like progress. I will certainly read it again.
This book might work for you if: You like detailed journalistic accounts of the intractable hubris of man.
This book might not work for you if: You need clean answers. The author admits several of his own shortcomings, but the book and the Outside article that preceded it have come under heavy scrutiny. He published it less than a year after he returned from the mountain, and while it is clear the book is an act of catharsis, an act of catharsis is sometimes not the most responsible book.
Similar reads: The Terror, Dan Simmons; The Luminous Dead, Caitlin Starling
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Steering the Craft, Ursula K. LeGuin
I’ve collected a number of volumes on writing craft; I’m still looking for the one that speaks to me. LeGuin speaks wisely, and much of what she says about writing I happen to agree with; she particularly highlights things like rhythm, voice, and narration, which contributes to the sound of writing, something she also finds important. She offers plentiful examples from the literary canon and helpful exercises. A lovely little book.
This book might work for you if: you need a good writer to give you a pep talk on how building skill is something serious writers do. Sometimes it takes time; sometimes it requires strategy and practice. She will tell you to do it, and well.
This book might not be for you if: you need concrete writing advice. LeGuin’s advice is often general; that is often what makes the advice good. But for a volume that purports not to be for the beginning writer, a seasoned writer may find little concrete to build on here.
Similar books: The Art of Memoir, Mary Karr. I have found Jeff Vandermeer’s Wonderbook the most concretely helpful on speculative worldbuilding.