August Reading Wrap Up
This August reading wrap up is an exciting one! I don’t know if I’ve ever had a month with so many five-star reads. Maybe I was in a good vacation mood, maybe that made me love everything I read? I don’t know, I think these books were just REALLY good.
Let’s dive into it!
August Reading Wrap Up
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My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Otessa Moshfegh **** (4)
My Year of Rest and Relaxation takes place in 2000, which is a time period I’m starting to LOVE in literary fiction. This book has it all: Whoopi Goldberg, the Bush inauguration, Victoria’s Secret, Sex And The City, and AOL.
The narrator recently graduated from Columbia, and despite her privilege — good lucks, family money, good job at an art gallery — she is deeply unhappy. She finds herself a *ridiculous* psychotherapist who puts her on a mad cocktail of drugs to deal with her emotional pain, and she sets out to sleep for a year.
This book is weird and wonderful. I’m especially drawn to books that have very interesting atmospheres, and aesthetics, which this book does. It’s very claustrophobic. And it’s brutal. I’ve never read anything like this.
Motherhood by Sheila Heti ***** (5)
Motherhood is about the consequential decision of whether or not to become a mother. This narrator is in her late thirties and everyone around her wants to know if she’s going to have children. She seeks guidance from so many sources: flipping coins, fortune tellers, and consulting advice from everyone she knows, etc. She grapples with the decision of whether to have children over a period of several years while, biologically, time is running out to make a choice.
I found this to be a fair and complex treatment of one of the biggest decisions a person makes in life. Sheila Heti’s narrator really considers every angle. This book made me want to discuss it with my friends at every turn. Required reading for women everywhere!
PS: This is plotless fiction with some funky and creative uses of form, so you have to be up for that, but the writing is very intriguing.
Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chonaird ****** (5)
Last month I listed to the How I Built This podcast episode with Patagonia-founder, Yvon Chonaird. I was so interested in his business philosophy that I rushed to pick up this memoir.
Chonaird’s story touches on environmental issues, activism, a love of the outdoors, entrepreneurism, and innovation. And all of this, through the lens of being a good person and having a low impact on the world. As Curtis and I are very interested in being small business owners, I found this book a very inspiring. Unlike any other “business” book I’ve ever read.
When I Hit You by Meena Kandasany ***** (5)
When I Hit You: Or, A Portrait of a Writer as a Young Wife was short-listed for the Women’s Prize this year. This book absolutely gripped me. I read it during a train ride in Germany this summer and when I reached our apartment I didn’t want to put it down to go exploring!
The story is about a young Indian woman who marries a university professor. They share political views and she is seduced by his intellect and they rush, hastily, into a marriage. Her husband decides they will move to a remote town, far away from her family. There, she doesn’t understand the local language and is very alone. Her husband works to keep her very isolated. He sets out to turn her into an “obedient wife,” taking away her connections to the outside world, her passion for writing, and her freedom. The relationship soon becomes physically abusive — this isn’t an easy read, but it is a powerful one.
This story is short, and you will race through it like a horror. It is one hell of a triumph.
Conversations With Friends by Sally Rooney ***** (5)
This may be my favorite book of the year — I’m obsessed with it and have to get my hands on Normal People which is out in the U.S. in the spring. Conversations With Friends is the story of France and Bobbi who are best friends, literary-world hipsters, ex-lovers, and spoken word poets. Are you hooked yet?
The duo becomes obsessed with a chic older couple, Melissa and Nick. Melissa is a writer, and she’s writing a profile on the girls. Her husband Nick is a beautiful, but struggling, actor. I won’t say any more.
This is a beautifully written book about relationships. It’s chock-full of character study and messiness. It’s both witty and very pleasurable to read. I absolutely ate up Sally Rooney’s writing, like I said, I’m obsessed. Because of the style and aesthetic, I think this is a love it or leave it book, very dependent on your tastes. Let’s just say if you love Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, I think you’ll love Sally Rooney.
Immigrant, Montana by Amitava Kumar **** (4)
In Immigrant, Montana, Kailash moves from India to New York to study at university. This narrative is full of his personal experiences: stories of the different women he falls in love with, his experiences with immigration, and his relationship with his professor and mentor.
Kailash doesn’t remind me of any narrator I’ve ever read before, and I appreciate his perspective as a South Indian man and graduate student, which is very unique to mine of course. I enjoyed how youthful and full of love the character is as he journals and documents about his romantic journey. And I found each of the three women he’s in love with throughout his time in graduate school fascinating. The little vignettes he shares sum up a whole love story so well.
I was less interested in the “history lesson” portions weaved into this book, just because I felt so drawn to the characters of the main narrative that I didn’t want to leave their world. But this book explores an interesting culture and some political ideologies as well, so if that’s your jam, you’ll definitely like this one.
That’s all for Summer!
As always, I would love to hear from you if you’ve read any of these books. Please tell me what you think of them, or if there’s any I talk about here that you want to pick up!
A great place to have that conversation is on Instagram or Twitter, where I’m @brumeanddaisy. And don’t forget to come find me over on Goodreads. Let me know what you read this month, and send recommendations for what books I should pick up next month.
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Talk soon, Emily
