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Wednesday Reading Meme
Apr. 2nd, 2014 08:50 amWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
I finally finished Eva Rice’s The Misinterpretation of Tara Jupp. I liked it, but it’s a bit uneven: it has two stories and they sort of work against each other. There’s the story of Tara’s coming of age and her relationship with her sister Lucy (and Lucy’s relationship with her husband and her best friend), which is very well done, and then there’s the story of Tara’s rise to pop stardom, which seems a bit tacked on.
It seems like Rice is reluctant to let Tara’s growing fame change her relationships in any fundamental way. Tara comments repeatedly that her stardom will change her whole life, but it really never does, and therefore it never really feels real.
But I did enjoy the coming-of-age story a lot.
Also Sarah Addison Allen’s Lost Lake, which is my favorite book of hers since The Sugar Queen. It feels less self-consciously, quirkily southern than some of her intervening books, while retaining the strong sense of place that I really enjoy in her work. By the end of the book I wanted to visit Lost Lake and stay in one of the cabins.
And G. K. Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday. This book’s subtitle is A Nightmare, and it makes sense: there is something odd and dreamlike about it, which made it interesting but insubstantial. I had a similar reaction to his collection of essays Tremendous Trifles: he seems addicted to contradictions, whether or not they actually have a deeper meaning or even actually exist.
Emma is a big fan of Chesterton. Maybe you have to be Catholic to really appreciate him.
What I’m Reading Now
Barbara Hambly’s A Free Man of Color. I am a bit in the soup about who all the characters are, but I’ve got the main ones straight and I’m having a good time reading it.
Also Brideshead Revisited, which is very well written and well-observed and extremely English. I’m enjoying all those parts. I don’t think I’m supposed to find Sebastian’s self-pitying decline into alcoholism quite as annoying as I do.
What I Plan to Read Next
Jaclyn Moriarty’s The Cracks in the Kingdom. Yes! It has arrived! I am trying not to get too excited about it, because it’s easier to enjoy things if you don’t pile too much anticipation on them.
I finally finished Eva Rice’s The Misinterpretation of Tara Jupp. I liked it, but it’s a bit uneven: it has two stories and they sort of work against each other. There’s the story of Tara’s coming of age and her relationship with her sister Lucy (and Lucy’s relationship with her husband and her best friend), which is very well done, and then there’s the story of Tara’s rise to pop stardom, which seems a bit tacked on.
It seems like Rice is reluctant to let Tara’s growing fame change her relationships in any fundamental way. Tara comments repeatedly that her stardom will change her whole life, but it really never does, and therefore it never really feels real.
But I did enjoy the coming-of-age story a lot.
Also Sarah Addison Allen’s Lost Lake, which is my favorite book of hers since The Sugar Queen. It feels less self-consciously, quirkily southern than some of her intervening books, while retaining the strong sense of place that I really enjoy in her work. By the end of the book I wanted to visit Lost Lake and stay in one of the cabins.
And G. K. Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday. This book’s subtitle is A Nightmare, and it makes sense: there is something odd and dreamlike about it, which made it interesting but insubstantial. I had a similar reaction to his collection of essays Tremendous Trifles: he seems addicted to contradictions, whether or not they actually have a deeper meaning or even actually exist.
Emma is a big fan of Chesterton. Maybe you have to be Catholic to really appreciate him.
What I’m Reading Now
Barbara Hambly’s A Free Man of Color. I am a bit in the soup about who all the characters are, but I’ve got the main ones straight and I’m having a good time reading it.
Also Brideshead Revisited, which is very well written and well-observed and extremely English. I’m enjoying all those parts. I don’t think I’m supposed to find Sebastian’s self-pitying decline into alcoholism quite as annoying as I do.
What I Plan to Read Next
Jaclyn Moriarty’s The Cracks in the Kingdom. Yes! It has arrived! I am trying not to get too excited about it, because it’s easier to enjoy things if you don’t pile too much anticipation on them.
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