November Reading Wrap-Up

November overall was a long month for me, but a good reading month! I read some crowd favorites (including Fourth Wing) and some interesting new reads. And, I hit my yearly reading goal of 52 books! My new goal is to get to 60, which would mean finishing 6 in December. A stretch goal, but do-able, considering I’m half way through 2 books at the moment.

Want a piece of 90s nostalgia mixed with the horrors of adulthood? Look no further than Mister Magic: a book about a TV show that was cancelled under mysterious circumstances. Everyone remembers the show but there is no evidence anywhere of it actually existing (Shazam anyone?). Enter our main character Val, a farmhand with a mysterious past. When someone she knows (but doesn’t know) shows up, she gets pulled from her idyllic farm life into a vipers den. A commentary on how hard it is to leave something you’ve grown up with your whole life, Mister Magic is a perfect horror read with a bit of speculative fiction. I could barely put it down!

Other Words for Smoke is one of the strangest books I have ever read. One of my reading challenges was a book that takes place in Ireland, and I found this one on a list of best Irish Gothic novels. This novel follows a set of twins, Rossa and Mae, and thier interactions over multiple summers with their Aunt Rita and the house she lives in. This story requires a more-than-normal amount of imagination, as its soon revealed that there’s multiple dimensions in the walls (and other places, too). Most of the magic is not explained, so at some point you just have to accept that you’re going on a wild ride in which you’ll get very few, if any, answers. Overall, trying to think about this book is like trying to catch whisps of smoke: you can see it, but you can’t capture it or hold on to it in any meaningful way. Which makes it really hard to rate; hence I leaned on my default rating of 4 stars. (If you’ve read this, I’d love to know what you thought.)

The Attic Child was the last book I needed to complete my Book of the Month reading challenge for 2023, so I made it a priority in November. Told from multiple POVs, this story follows two individuals trapped in the same attic decades apart. The overall story and theme were exceeding well done, and helps educate the public on historical events that might not be as well known (particularly, the history of black people in the United Kingdom prior to World War I). However, I did feel like the story suffered from some pacing issues; the ending “conflict” happened with around 20% of the story still to go. This ended up dragging out the ending and made for a slightly less pleasant reading experience. Overall, I’d still recommend, just not as strongly as I would have otherwise.

I rarely feel so conflicted about a book as I do about All You Have To Do Is Call. This book is “inspired” by the Jane Collective, an underground abortion ring in Chicago in the pre-Roe era. While the story itself was okay, my mixed feelings come from the “inspired” part. The author took just a few details (the Jane collective was a real organization that did provide abortions in Chicago), and added a completely fabricated story on top of it. The founder of Jane in the book and the founder in real life are two completely different people with different stories, as are all the characters in this book. Because of this, the book can come off as a liberal think-piece just to support one side (even if I happen to agree with that side). Furthermore, everything ended up tied nicely with a bow at the end, which seemed a little too convenient. No matter which side of this you’re on, this probably won’t change your view, and the better way to learn about this period in our history is to probably read what the real Jane collective was about.

In short summary: While reading Fourth Wing, I couldn’t put it down. However, I’ve since learned some things about the story, author, and publisher, and I’m reconsidering how I feel about the book. Therefore, I’ll be back with all of my thoughts & feelings – and a rating – in a separate post.