IN WHICH The Girl Lists Things

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme created by The Broke and the Bookish. I'm double parking on this one. The list I really want to do - top ten books I've read so far in 2015 - is actually from a couple weeks ago. I'll throw in today's question - last ten books to come into my possession - as well.

Best Books of 2015 Part I

My Goodreads goal for 2015 has jumped up to 150, and I'm nearly halfway through (just one book off). Even though I've read 74 books this year, I still get stressed when Goodreads tells me I'm 5 books behind schedule. Stop pressuring me! Here are my favorites in the first half of the year. I had an incredibly hard time narrowing it down and can hear the runners-up yelling, "Why didn't you choose me???" in my head.

The Literary

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. This book will creep into your mind and never let go (see what I did there?). It's like watching a car crash; you just can't look away. I think my eyes were wide open in fascinated horror throughout the whole book, which I read in almost one sitting. The less you know about the book going in, the better, so I won't give anything away. My favorite so far.

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. As one of the bestselling books in the last couple years, this one isn't much of a surprise. However, critics and regular old readers have hotly debated its merit. I really enjoyed it. Many people have called it Dickensian for good reason. It's a sprawling coming-of-age tale that despite its length (all 800 pages) actually left me wishing I had more details about the missing moments of Theo's life. And boy does it have some entertaining minor characters with great names: Pippa, Welty, Toddy, Hobie, and Boris.

The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood. I have mixed feelings about Atwood's work, but I liked this little book a lot. We all know Penelope faithfully waiting for Odysseus, but she's got her own tale here that she is more than willing to provide from beyond the grave. It's a weird combination of styles, everything from memoir to chorus song to play, and deeply feminist. But Atwood's got a biting wit here that pulls me in.

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan. I read this once before, but it was over ten years ago, and all I remembered was that putting salt on your food while at a dinner party deeply insults the host. Tan provides multiple perspectives on the mother-daughter relationship with all of its expectations, misinterpretations, and twisted acts of love. I found it best to read each story separately because it's a little like getting punched in the heart. Sometimes the losses each of these women experience are so subtly mentioned that they are all the more heartbreaking. Tan just has a beautiful way with words.

The Fantastical Adult

The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey. What if you were a monster and didn't know it? The Girl with All the Gifts is a new take on a old genre. It's not a genre I usually enjoy, but I found the character portrayal and the moral complexity interesting. I actually found myself losing a bit of interest once the book moves on to more action and less introspection. The book works better if you don't know the topic (though I think most people already do), so I'll just stop here.

Uprooted by Naomi Novik. Once upon a time, a little girl went into the forest and never came back. A common tale but I've rarely read a story with a forest as terrifying and alive as this one. The villagers must sacrifice one girl every ten years to the "dragon," or wizard, who protects the residents from the Wood. But the Dragon doesn't pick the expected girl, and the world starts falling apart. The complex relationships between the characters makes this fantasy stand out from all the others.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. Man, I just want to live inside the world of this book. It's just so magically magical. In the book, two magicians start a contest between their young protegees. As the contestants age, their entire lives, and the lives of everyone in the Night Circus, revolve around this duel they know little about. Inevitably, the competitors fall in love and must find a way to break free. Morgenstern's language is incredibly visual, and I can easily picture how the circus and all of its inventions would look on screen.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. Another unusual spin on a common genre. It follows the lives of several characters before and after a flu takes out all but a handful of the population. Beyond displaying the tragedy of witnessing an apocalypse and the harsh reality of living in its wake, Station Eleven focuses on the creative outlets people need to survive. For example, the two most prominent perspectives are of a Shakespearean actor and a Traveling Symphony. While most dystopian novels involve intense action and drama, Mandel's book is understated and elegant.

Youthful

The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black. I must have a thing for scary forests lately. I don't always like Black's novels; they have a grittiness that leaves me checking for dirt on my skin. However, I loved this one. I read it back in January and it still keeps popping up in my head. Again we have villagers living on the edge of a dangerous forest - though this one is set in the modern world. Black plays with the childhood interest in fairy tales. Did you fight imaginary monsters as a child? Did you imagine a prince or princess trapped in a magical forest who would one day awaken and fall in love with you? The Hansel and Gretel-esqe main characters do both these things, but in their case fairies are real and the prince does awaken. But fairies are not always nice and both children have been dreaming of the same prince. Adventures ensue. Also, I like that this book is a standalone, which is rare in the young adult fantasy genre.

Unspoken by Sarah Rees Brennan. You might be able to tell I love the fantasy and science fiction stuff. Unspoken wonders whether being able to read someone's mind is a good thing. Kami never really lost her childhood imaginary friend, but has convinced herself the voice inside her head is not real until the day he shows up as an actual person. Rees Brennan does a remarkable job at showing the complicated inner thoughts of her characters. It also brings up some intriguing questions about how we define our selves as unique from others and where we draw the line on sharing our deepest thoughts. Do you really want your best friends or significant others to know everything inside your head? The rest of the series doesn't quite live up to the first book, but it's an enjoyable read.

I have read so many young adult books this year that I couldn't fit nearly enough of them in here, so here are some honorable mentions: Angelfall, The Raven Boys, Shadow Scale, The Court of Thorns and Roses, Scarlet, and The Girl of Fire and Thorns.

And now for my recently acquired books, I will provide a picture of my latest haul from the used bookstore.

Happy reading all!

IN WHICH The Girl Relives Her Twenties

How much would you give to be 26 again? This question does not count if you are 27. Two shows - on surprising channels - took on this same theme during the spring, producing an interesting look at the ups and downs of reliving the good ol' days.

VH1's Hindsight goes the science fiction route back to the 90s. Becca, about to embark on her second marriage in her early 40s, suddenly travels back in time via a magical elevator to the eve of her first wedding twenty years earlier. Fully aware of her time travel, Becca must navigate the 90s and decide which past wrongs should be righted. This is the ultimate game of "what if?" What if you had quit that job before you learned it went nowhere? What if you had noticed your brother's drug problems earlier? What if you didn't marry the no-good man? We all wonder about different choices we could or should have made in the past, particularly the big life decisions of our twenties, and Becca has the impossible chance to find out the answers. However, while it seems easy to just make a new choice, Becca quickly finds out that knowing the future doesn't mean you can prevent it, and making "better" decisions can have disastrous effects. Becca ultimately just has to struggle through the 90s again, hoping she's doing the right thing like all the rest of us. At least she gets to listen to great music in her twenty-year-old body. 

Younger, on TV Land of all places, has a more realistic, if still somewhat unbelievable, premise. Upon leaving her husband and finding herself financially stricken (said husband gambled all the money away), Liza attempts to find a career after 15 years away raising her daughter. She quickly discovers that she's considered too old and inexperienced to get a book publishing job. Since she looks young and her daughter is studying abroad, the 40-year-old Liza decides to pretend she's 26 and lands a marketing assistant position. In this act, she befriends other twenty-somethings - who introduce her to the crazy hot mess of being young with some spending money - and she even starts dating a hot tattoo artist. However, Liza must learn the intricacies of social media, the lingo, and the norms (shaving trends have changed since she got married). She eventually loses out on some great opportunities only her age and experience could provide because she has to pretend she doesn't understand the perspective of a 40-year-old woman. Liza's adventures let us see how fun, but exhausting and limiting, returning to your twenties could be. 

These are both entertaining shows that feed on the nostalgia many feel for the past, but Younger is the better show. Hindsight provides an awesome time capsule of the 90s - the music, the clothes, the trends - which I love. Plus, it contains a great sidekick in Lolly. Becca, nevertheless, quickly gets annoying in her constantly switching love interests and ideas about how to fix the future. On the other hand, Sutton Foster's portrayal of Liza is utterly delightful. Younger is funny and cute with story lines that evolve steadily and keep the audience invested. It has the same feel as Sex and the City, which makes sense as it has the same producer. I can't wait for the next season in January!

Speaking of awesome shows on unlikely channels, everyone should check out UnREAL on Lifetime. My boss came in this morning explaining how she was so tired because she stayed up until two in the morning binge watching all the current episodes. I did the exact same thing last week. UnREAL is a scripted show about producing a reality series like The Bachelor. It follows the producers as they manipulate the competitors in truly awful ways to make drama. It's addicting as all get out!

IN WHICH The Girl is an American

Hey look, I'm actually getting through my summer reading list. I finished Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah a couple days ago, appropriately leading up to our most American holiday. We are about to embark outside in our red, white, and blue to sing about freedom and celebrate independence. All good things. But Adichie's book is a useful reminder that America the beautiful will pretend our many faults don't exist on this and most other days.

One of the book's characters asks, “Why did people ask "What is it about?" as if a novel had to be about only one thing.” And Americanah certainly pokes at many issues - immigration, race, love, identity, hair. Adichie may even try to take on too many things at once, as the narrative becomes a bit long and cumbersome. However, the novel mainly tells the story of Ifemelu's emigration to America during college and return to Nigeria many years later. Adichie looks at both countries, particularly the United States, with a scathing critical eye. 

As an immigrant, Ifemelu can see and discuss our flaws, particularly race, more clearly than most native born Americans. Race in America both fascinates and repels her, so she starts a blog called Raceteenth or Various Observations About American Blacks (Those Formerly Known as Negroes) by a Non-American Black. The novel and its blog reveal what America looks like to outsiders, and it's not always pretty. One of the biggest conundrums Ifemelu witnesses is how Americans try so hard to appear politically correct and open minded, to the point of claiming race is no longer an issue here.

“The only reason you say that race was not an issue is because you wish it was not. We all wish it was not. But it’s a lie. I came from a country where race was not an issue; I did not think of myself as black and I only became black when I came to America. When you are black in America and you fall in love with a white person, race doesn’t matter when you’re alone together because it’s just you and your love. But the minute you step outside, race matters. But we don’t talk about it. We don’t even tell our white partners the small things that piss us off and the things we wish they understood better, because we’re worried they will say we’re overreacting, or we’re being too sensitive. And we don’t want them to say, Look how far we’ve come, just forty years ago it would have been illegal for us to even be a couple blah blah blah, because you know what we’re thinking when they say that? We’re thinking why the fuck should it ever have been illegal anyway? But we don’t say any of this stuff. We let it pile up inside our heads and when we come to nice liberal dinners like this, we say that race doesn’t matter because that’s what we’re supposed to say, to keep our nice liberal friends comfortable.It's true. I speak from experience."

Despite the harsh truths her characters spout, you can still feel a love for America peeking out from the novel's corners. America becomes one more piece of Ifemelu's identity by the time she moves back home to Nigeria. Sometimes reading Americanah can feel a little more like attending a lecture than reading a novel, but it is an enjoyable lecture. So for this 4th of July, keep your eyes clear and your hearts full - as Coach Taylor would say.