books of 2021
luster - ravine leilani: how many more books can i read where people - women, because most books i read these days feature female protagonists, but also men - are having mindless or intentionally degrading sex? it is not absolutely core to this book, like some others, but it annoys me and i really should stop it. it is boring. the book, seemingly hyped, left me pretty much meh. ok there are some interesting racial - and weird domestic set up elements but nothing particularly moving. it is easily forgotten.
girl A - abigail dean: the premise is of course intriguing. very readable. but was it very surprising? no.
breasts and eggs - mieko kawakami: i don't know what made me grab it - we had just gotten married, and we were browsing at the city bookshop the day or so after the wedding. i had been interested but knew very little about the plot of the book, only that maybe she is the antithesis of murakami. finally i opened the book this month. it has been some time since i last read a book - i blame the wedding, and all the hoopla of life changing that happened thereafter. anyway - this book, initially it was a slog to get into, but became much more readable about a third way in. i felt for it a bit, given my current state of affairs - the whole 'eggs' side of things - of pregnancy, of one's desire for childbearing and childrearing - and the uncertainty and even the selfishness of it - the unknowable future and unknowable possibility of any 'happiness' for your future progeny - it did strike some small chord in me towards the end. the writing was at times a little tiresome, a little prosaic - but the feel, the sense of the person, i got.
the lost daughter - elena ferrante: i had just listened to a podcast featuring lisa taddeo, who gushed about ferrante's other works (ie not part of the 4 part my brilliant friend series), and incidentally i had watched a trailer for a movie adaptation of this book, starring olivia colman and dakota johnson which got me intrigued. i wolfed, inhaled, this book within 3 days, something i haven't done in quite a long while. it was a compelling read, all about a woman's feelings about her own mother, her own motherhood, relationship to her daughters, and her sense of identity etc - all very poignant for someone like me of course.
troubling love - elena ferrante: after the last ferrante book, this was the next on the list on my e-library stock. ferrante writes a lot about mothers and daughters it appears. she also writes a lot of disgust, and a crude sort of violence. it was not as engaging or immediately compelling a read as the lost daughter.
oh william! - elizabeth strout: another strout number. i love her simple, concise and somehow precise writing.
olive, again - elizabeth strout: it was like re-visiting old friends. the same old olive, her new beau, the cast of characters. i had just watched the tv series of olive kitteridge, i was surrounded by everything olive again. it is a pure joy, every sentence, every chapter. oh how she writes the way she does! the honesty and precision with which she describes the unpleasantness of life - our negative emotions at times. she is a marvel - both olive, and strout.
