This was my lightest reading month of the year (I think), but it’s mainly because two of the books took me a while to get through!
MEREDITH ALONE by Claire Alexander
4/5 Stars
If you read and loved Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, you will like the vibes of this book. But if you read Eleanor Oliphant and didn’t like it…. you might like Meredith Alone better. Don’t write it off. It was a sweet story about mental health, family, and friendship. Meredith has not left her house in years– she works remotely, has everything delivered, does puzzles, and has a small community in an online support group. But all of that will start to change as a couple of new friends enter her life. It read like a real and quite relatable plot, which I think is becoming my favorite kind of book. Just normal characters facing life challenges that a lot of us face in real life. It’s a tiny bit slow, but…. I liked the pace? Again, just felt normal. Her “recovery” isn’t linear as she faces both setbacks and triumphs throughout the book.
DEMON COPPERHEAD by Barbara Kingsolver
4/5 Stars
Barbara Kingsolver is a brilliant writer and Demon Copperhead is no exception. It’s a modern day David Copperfield if you’re familiar with Charles Dickens’ autobiographical novel. Like David Copperfield, Demon Copperhead paints the bleak narrative of what it’s like to grow up an orphan in the United States in modern day. Set in Appalachia, the novel is an examination of poverty, orphanhood, education, addiction, etc. It’s a lot to take in. It’s a dense book, covering the tragedies in Demon’s life from childhood through adulthood. There were many times when I wanted to give up reading it because it felt like getting punched in the gut again and again, but that was the absolute brilliance of Demon Copperhead.
THE MARRIAGE PORTRAIT by Maggie O’Farrell
4/5 Stars
I haven’t read Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet yet, but I had heard rave reviews about that as well as The Marriage Portrait, so I was exciting to dig into it. I will start this by saying O’Farrell has an absolute gift with words. I was blown away by the writing. The Marriage Portrait is an historical novel based on the real life events of Lucrezia de’ Medici’s life in Italy in the 1500s. She is given away for marriage at the age of 15 and sent to live with her now-husband, who has a dark side to him. I personally found it a little slow for the first 60% of the book, and then I couldn’t put it down for the last 40. It took me weeks to read the first half and then only days to finish it, wanting to stay up a little later than usual because I needed to get a few more pages in!
READ WITH ME
Great suggestions!! I’m always looking for new authors to try!
http://www.elspethsdaybyday.com
I’m on hold at the library for both Demon Copperhead and The Marriage Portrait! I have a couple of suggestions of books I have really liked over the past months – Meant to Be by Emily Giffin (it’s a thinly veiled retelling of JFK Jr and Carolyn Bessette’s love story), You Made A Food of Death with Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi (beautiful but raw love story featuring a young widow – BEAUTIFUL writing), and Tracy Flick Can’t Win by Tom Perotta (technically a sequel to Election but I like to think of it as a stand alone novel because I think Reese Witherspoon’s Tracy is so iconic and really shouldn’t be compared to the actions of the main character in this book). Happy cozy reading season!
Also wanted to say that Hamnet is amazing, but grief from the mother’s perspective is a big theme so everyone should be in the right headspace to read it!
You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty is one of my favorite books this year! The writing truly was beautiful and it will stick with me for a loooong time.
November was a slow reading month for me also!