Book 21:
Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
Rough Review:
3 stars. I don’t know how to review this, or what notes to write to let my future self know how I felt or what I was thinking after reading it. TBA is a talented writer and quite brutally…funny isn’t the right word, maybe amusing? But I think for me, a lot of this reads as characters and situations in service of commentary, commentary that is miserable and true and not completely true and certainly true for some people some of the time, and it wasn’t for me. I could smirk and nod along with or shake my head at some of it, but personally, it didn’t make me feel seen or understood, or resonate as I guess you’d say, and when I read fiction, I like it best when the commentary is in service of the story. So this books didn’t quite do it for me, but I understand all the praise it got, and might even give the miniseries a watch if it’s streaming somewhere now.
Final Review: 166 words, we’ll take it
Book 22:
The Nix by Nathan Hill
Rough Review:
4.5 stars. Rounding up because when a book is this long but this good, there’s enough of the good to outweigh whatever didn’t quite work for me (CW and SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS i ) or whoever I didn’t quite care about (LAURA UGH).
I’ve had this book for I think 8 years? Soon after it was published in softcover. And every time I thought about reading it, I’d look at the summary on the back, or check online to see “what is this book actually about?” and I would never get an answer, and I would get frustrated, because why is it so difficult to give me a freaking book summary?
And having read the book, I can only say “ah, I see”. What is this book about? Um. Well, it’s about Samuel Andresen-Anderson, and his middle school crush, and the mother who abandoned him when he was 11 years old, and her father from Norway, and the riot at the DNC in Chicago in 1968, and MMPORGs, and choosing your own adventure and protests and politics and secrets and regrets, and honestly, Sarah Jessica Parker’s pull quote on the back cover, “Everything that doesn’t involve reading this book is a nuisance and distraction!” is exactly correct, because even when I was weary or skeptical or not entirely impressed with what I was reading, I was totally engrossed and did not want to stop. Stupid work and eating and sleeping. I wonder what other books she’s reviewed? Never seen her pull-quoted before.
It’s also about run-on sentences and at least my excuse is that it’s 2:24am and I’m only writing this for me when I wonder how I felt about this book 9 years from now. What’s yours, Nathan Hill???
It’s hard not to wonder how much, if any, of this is biographical given that Hill was apparently briefly a professor and is married to a musician, and how much might just be inventing a backstory for the girl in glasses on the picture on the front cover that got a little bit out of hand.
I thought the ending was perfect. It’s rare for a book this long and detailed to really land the ending, often leaving things too bleak because LITERATURE or too pat or just kind of fading away. But I really liked how even though everything wasn’t completely wrapped up, most characters were on a path that allows the possibility for some kind of healing.
I picked this up finally because I’m already at 21/25 (with a stretch goal of 52) books this year and have been reading a lot of women and a lot of ebooks and wanted something by a man that I had a physical copy of and decided it was a good opportunity to go for something long. So I went into my library and picked up The Corrections, Middlesex, and The Nix and read the first 2 pages of each to see what called to me. That’s why I love my physical and virtual libraries: they’re so big, at this point, that I never know what I’m going to read next.4 stars. Another slow, atmospheric read. Cal and Trey’s relationship is the main draw here, and it’s good to be with them; Tana French does dialogue well. The mystery here is a bit thin and almost besides the point, which is fine but not quite what I was expecting. I’m happy to read more of her stuff if it comes up.
Final Review: Another best of the year. 707 words.
Book 23:
Happy Place by Emily Henry
Rough Review:
3 stars. My reaction to this one was similar to PWMOV. I think I enjoyed this slightly more because I was interested in the friend group and Harriet and Wyn had a bit more going on than Alex and Poppy?
Is this the first one with no book-related profession? No novelists, literary agents, librarians, or travel writers here!
So having now read 5 Emily Henrys, 5 T. Kingfishers, and 1 random Jewish-themed romance novel, I have developed some Opinions. For example, I realize I am not a huge fan of “YOU ARE THE ONLY PERSON FOR ME WITHOUT YOU I MIGHT AS WELL BE DEAD” descriptions of romance. That distaste, I think, is part of why I avoided the genre for so long. One can get the idea that romance novels, by and large, are about nothing but the love two characters have for one another and the plot contrivances/obstacles that will keep them apart and create tension until the end of the novel, when the catharsis is achieved they are allowed to have an uncomplicated happily ever after. That does not interest me. I understand why it interests some, and I think books about people’s emotions and relationships can be incredibly thoughtful, well-written, and validating, but I am learning that what I enjoy most in a quote unquote ROMANCE BOOK is funny banter, the characters getting to know each other, the reader getting to know the characters (as a couple, sure, but more importantly as individuals), and a setting that they can bounce off of and explore. Book Lovers had that in spades. No wonder I loved it so much.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the two Henrys that didn’t work as well for me were the friends-to-lovers and second chance tropes, because by virtue of having to explain the reasons the relationship didn’t work in the first place AND the reasons they’ve changed and grown, there’s not a lot of room left over in the story for much NON ROMANCE and other facets of their lives. It’s ALL about longing and regret and mistakes and it just gets maudlin to me. It doesn’t resonate. I am a cynical bitch who thinks that love at first sight is a cop out and a trap, a pedestal you didn’t ask to be placed on and will be punished for when you inevitable fall off of. Henry put in a lot of work to give Poppy and Harriet SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS Ugh. No. Book, I see your value and I recognize your quality, but you are not for me, and now I know a little more about what is for me.
Also I don’t know where else to put this, and I admire her writing in so many ways, but the things Henry has her heroine’s bodies go through when they’re turned on range from confusing to downright alarming. He unzipped you vertebrate by vertebrate? No thank you, please. As a doctor, you should know that is neither possible nor healthy nor even desirable, Harriet.
4 stars. Another slow, atmospheric read. Cal and Trey’s relationship is the main draw here, and it’s good to be with them; Tana French does dialogue well. The mystery here is a bit thin and almost besides the point, which is fine but not quite what I was expecting. I’m happy to read more of her stuff if it comes up.
Final Review: Okay! 575 words.
Book 24:
All in Her Head: The Truth and Lies Early Medicine Taught Us About Women’s Bodies and Why It Matters Today – A Memorial Sloan Kettering MD’s History of Healthcare and Agency by Elizabeth Comen
Rough Review:
4 stars. What a frustrating and infuriating read. The last two chapters in particular were heartbreaking, the thought of all those thousands, even millions of women left to languish at best or be tortured and brutalized in the name of healing at worst…
Comen has some very funny moments in here and I almost wish there were more of them to off-set the constant “what the FUCKING FUCK”ery of the history itself. Because damn. You might think you know just how absurdly sexist things can get, and I’d bet you’d still be shocked (if not surprised) at some of the shit these doctors immortalized in print.
There was some oddly ableist and insensitive language throughout that struck extra sharply given the topic, and some strange repetition that, once again, made me think another pass by an editor would have been helpful. (I have 108 highlighted passages on my Kindle, but they aren’t posting to Goodreads for some reason, so for example: “looking like a monster” – what exactly does it mean to look like a monster? There’s a fine line between elucidating concepts and propagating them; Mary Ashberry is mentioned as dying in the spring of 1856 twice (and in the same chapter, a double mention of Comen as a first-year medical student within the span of 2 pages); use of the phrase “tuberculosis women” – surely women with tuberculosis is preferred? Like, you say people with flu, not flu people…; I’m personally uncomfortable with talking about “successful” “battles” with cancer; “between the first and fifteenth centuries BCE, one of the few documents to directly address the existence of the clitoris is the 1486…” – again, please please please do not neglect the editor; I’m 70% sure that Comen misgenders trans men as “women” in these pages, but honestly it’s not clear and that in itself is a writing issue.)
Speaking of missing highlights, I like this note, by me, from page 75: “I knew this book would piss me off but FOR FUCK’S SAKE.”
I see no reason why the references couldn’t have been included in the book. It’s only around 370 pages, and the references add another 80 or, which is the norm for books of this type.
I liked the organization of the book in terms of the 11 systems of the body. A decent mix of broad medical history and specific case studies. I just wish there was more information on what we DO know now, rather than a lot of open space and entreaties to fight for good care. But what IS good care when so little is known? I’m also finding a problem with some pop science in that I want more detail on the biology and that’s an issue with my own expectations, not the books themselves. If it was a pop science book on physics or, I don’t know, engineering, the equivalent level of detail would be great but I want to know EVERYTHING about our biology and books like this (and Human Error, which I read earlier this year) don’t go into as much depth as I would have liked. I also realize that this is more a medical history book than a pop science book. In fact, I’ve talked myself up from a 3.5 to a 3.75 rating because I do think All In Her Head was mostly successful in what it was actually trying to do, so it seems silly to dock enjoyment points for it not being what I apparently subconsciously wanted it to be.
I’m hoping The Gene and The Song of the Cell will be more up my alley that way, but if anyone knows of any books on women’s medical history that go deeper into the science, please recommend them!
Final Review: On reflection, I remember this as being a very irritating read with some big oversights about trans issues and some shoddy research, so 4 stars seems a bit high, but it’s a very interesting and under-served topic and I’m glad I read it. 623 words.
Book 25:
Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection by John Green
Rough Review:
4 stars. Oh what a gem of a human and writer John Green is. Of his YA novels, I think the only one I haven’t read is An Abundance of Katherines, and found the others generally enjoyable, except for Turtles All the Way Down, which made me feel more seen as a former teenager with former and current OCD and GAD (and depression, and a focus on germs and sickness) than I think anything I have ever read. And then last year I read The Anthropocene Reviewed and Green quickly became a must read (I know it seems like he already was, but most of those YAs I read because they were nearby when I felt like something quick). So I knew I’d be getting this book as soon as he announced it. And what a wonderful read. Honestly, the only reason I’m rating it 4 stars is because it was so short. At barely 200 pages, it could as well be a long essay or series of blogs, or…is there a non-fiction version of a novella? At any rate, I love John Green’s writing and I would have loved more of this.
In absence of more, I shall review what I got, which was: a brief history of tuberculosis throughout human history spanning early identification and documentation around the world, the arrival of germ theory, discovery of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and the development of treatment and cures; a passionate breakdown of the reasons why “the disease is not where the cure is, and the cure is not where the disease is” and healthcare in Sierra Leone in particular, and an introduction to tuberculosis survivor Henry and his mother Isatu, bringing a personal face to the clinical reserve necessitated by relaying such overwhelming statistics. I also want to make special mention of what a great job Green does in sharing Henry’s story, because too often when describing poor people, or sick people, or racialized people, you can turn them into a magical beacon of hope and love and joy and lose the person, in what amounts to another way of dehumanizing them, and, and John himself points out, othering them in an attempt to distance the possibility of that poverty, illness, and discrimination from oneself. Henry’s own words, in the form of conversations, poetry, and excerpts from his memoir, his fights against despair and loneliness, references to his YouTube channel and his studies and advocacy, all help to remind us that even beyond his remarkable kindness and spirit is a real human person with real human needs, fears, feelings, and hopes.
A couple of years ago, a relative of mine was diagnosed with and treated for TB, and my response was the same as Green’s: “Wait, that’s still a thing?” And then I got a job in a hospital and had to have a TB test and I thought, “Well, there’s no way I’ll be positive, when on earth would I have come into contact with someone who has TB?” I didn’t know anything. Because in most of the privileged world I live in, TB isn’t still a thing, and it shouldn’t be anywhere. As usual, the people drawn towards this book won’t be the people who most need to hear its message, but I hope by reading it and obnoxiously recommending it to everyone I know, at least I can help raise awareness that yes, TB IS still a thing, and no, it does not have to be.
Notes:
– If Musk wants to be loved and admired so much, why doesn’t he take a small fraction of his fortune and fucking cure TB.
– “This is precisely what I mean when I say that romanticization is not a kind or generous way of treating the ill. I am an author, and I for one am deeply offended by the notion that my waywardness, peevishness, irascibility, misanthropy, and murky passions are caused by a derangement of bodily health, even as I am impressed by a 19th-century magazine’s ability to absolutely nail my personality.”
– “We all engage in the punitive act of giving a disease a meaning.”
– “We are here to love and be loved, to understand and be understood.”
Final Review: Yes. Yes to the review, yes to John Green. Yes. 699 words.
