July Books

So many gorgeous passages in The Secrety History by Donna Tartt. I love this one:

“I took a sip of my drink. If I had grown up in that house I couldn’t have loved it more, couldn’t have been more familiar with the creak of the swing, or the pattern of the clematis vine on the trellis, or the velvety swell of land as it faded to gray on the horizon, and the strip of highway visible – just barely – in the hills beyond the trees. The very colors of this place had seeped into my blood: just as Hampden, in subsequent years, would always present itself immediately to my imagination in a confused whirl of white and green and red, so the country house first appeared as a glorious blur of watercolors, of ivory and lapis blue, chestnut and burnt orange and gold, separating only gradually into the boundaries of remembered objects: the house, the sky, the maple trees. But even that day, there on the porch, with Charles beside me and the smell of wood smoke in the air, it had the quality of a memory; there it was, before my eyes, and yet too beautiful to believe.” – p. 96

From Library Journal:
This well-written first novel attempts to be several things: a psychological suspense thriller, a satire of collegiate mores and popular culture, and a philosophical bildungsroman. Supposedly brilliant students at a posh Vermont school (Bennington in thin disguise) are involved in two murders, one supposedly accidental and one deliberate.



I am a fan girl of Ann Pachett’s. Her novel, Bel Canto, is one of the best I’ve read. I had the good fortune to meet her, chat with her, hug her, even, at Turnrow Books. So it pains me to say that I did not care for State of Wonder.

The characters were bewildering; I couldn’t make sense of their actions. One character in particular was so unlikable that I began turning pages when she showed up.

Lots of readers and lots of reviewers love it, though.




A young woman in high school kills herself. Before she does, she records cassette tapes telling why. She mails these tapes to each of the people responsible. 13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher is heartbreaking and compelling and tragic. I think anyone who has ever been to high school should read it. Everyone who has a child in middle school or high school should read it. I will want my son to read it in a few years.

From Booklist:
When Clay Jenson plays the cassette tapes he received in a mysterious package, he's surprised to hear the voice of dead classmate Hannah Baker. He's one of 13 people who receive Hannah's story, which details the circumstances that led to her suicide. Clay spends the rest of the day and long into the night listening to Hannah's voice and going to the locations she wants him to visit. The text alternates, sometimes quickly, between Hannah's voice (italicized) and Clay's thoughts as he listens to her words, which illuminate betrayals and secrets that demonstrate the consequences of even small actions. Hannah, herself, is not free from guilt, her own inaction having played a part in an accidental auto death and a rape. The message about how we treat one another, although sometimes heavy, makes for compelling reading.



Under the Mercy Trees by Heather Newton

From Publishers Weekly:
Newton delivers a stirring debut novel told from the perspectives of four central characters embroiled in a family drama that spans generations and is riddled with defensive secrecy and emotional penury in equal measure.



So many people are wild about So Much Pretty by Cara Hoffman but I am not one of them.

I had issues with elements of the book and also with some of the scenes, graphic and distubring. The book is told through multiple viewpoints, which I've seen done effectively, but it didn't work for me here. I couldn't really get to know anyone because the POV was always shifting.

It was confusing, too, keeping up with where we were and when we were - some of the narration was when a character was three years old, then when was fifteen, then back to when she was eight. It made it work to keep up with.

*SPOILER ALERT*
A young woman disappears and it turns out she was held in chains in a storage building for five months, routinely raped, beaten, and assaulted by a group of teenage boys and a couple of their fathers.

Often the book felt like a violent, graphic ABC After School Special, trying to impart a message about violence against women. I'm anti-violence against women, of course, but all the rattling off of statistics didn't ring true.

It got a starred review at Publishers Weekly, for what it's worth.

Amazon.com reviews:
Stylishly written, closely observed, and bracingly unexpected, So Much Pretty leads the reader into the treacherous psychology of denial, where the details of an event are already known, deeply and intuitively felt, but not yet admitted to, reconciled or revealed.



I read The All of It and now remember nothing, not even one thing about it, which I guess is about all we need to know.

Wait – yes, I do. This is the book I bought because when I met Ann Pachett (don’t think I don’t work that into every conversation I can) she talked about it, how she loved it. The bookstore had the edition in which Ann had written the foreword. I found her endorsement and the reviews and blurbs did not match the caliber of the book.



What Now? by Ann Patchett I did love. Very much. It is right up my alley.

A few choice quotes:

It was for me the start of a lesson that I never stop having to learn: to pay attention to the things I’ll probably never need to know, to listen carefully to the people who look as if they have nothing to teach me, to see school as something that goes on everywhere, all the time, not just in libraries but in parking lots, in airports, in trees.

It took me a long time of pulling racks of scorching hot glasses out of the dishwasher, the clouds of steam smoothing everything around me into a perfect field of gray, to understand that writing a novel and living a life are very much the same thing.

You are, every one of you, someone’s favorite unfolding story.


From Amazon reviews:
Based on her lauded commencement address at Sarah Lawrence College, this stirring essay by bestselling author Ann Patchett offers hope and inspiration for anyone at a crossroads, whether graduating, changing careers, or transitioning from one life stage to another. With wit and candor, Patchett tells her own story of attending college, graduating, and struggling with the inevitable question, What now?



Runaway is the first book by Alice Munro I've read. I look forward to reading more of her work. She is some kind of writer.

From the book flap:
The incomparable Alice Munro’s bestselling and rapturously acclaimed Runaway is a book of extraordinary stories about love and its infinite betrayals and surprises, from the title story about a young woman who, though she thinks she wants to, is incapable of leaving her husband, to three stories about a woman named Juliet and the emotions that complicate the luster of her intimate relationships. In Munro’s hands, the people she writes about–women of all ages and circumstances, and their friends, lovers, parents, and children–become as vivid as our own neighbors. It is her miraculous gift to make these stories as real and unforgettable as our own.


Favorite Book of the Month: The Secret History. I wish that I could read it again for the first time.

Character Who I’d Most Like to Have Coffee With: Hannah from 13 Reasons Why so I could tell her that she is more wonderful than she knows.