Megan’s Reading Review

A sideblog for me to keep track of what I’ve read and how it made me feel :)

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Today at work we had an arts and crafts session. Since we were making bookmarks I decided to recreate the covers of two of the weirdest and most fascinating books I read this year. Art is not one of my talents but I had a lot of fun and I feel like that’s the point.

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Little bit of holiday reading

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I did it for you Jean-Yves Moreau

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My reading wrap up for the year. Stats curtesy of StoryGraph.

I’m pretty proud of the books I’ve read this year, I didn’t set myself any rules and just had fun with it. The Secret History and The Sunshine Court were my two 5 star reads of the year.

As for next year I’m hoping to work a bit more non-fiction into the repertoire, I really enjoyed Jon Ronson’s writing so I’ll probably check out some more of his stuff, a few of my friends have read the psychopath test so maybe I’ll start there.

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This year I’ve been dipping my toes into books that play into the dark academia aesthetic (probably something to do with the impending start of my masters program). So naturally I had to read to book that kick started them all.

What can I say about The Secret History that hasn’t already been said by someone more poetically inclined?

Let’s start with this, I enjoy reading (obviously), and I usually binge books, taking great delight in finishing them as fast as possible. However, with The Secret History I found myself dreading reaching the end, knowing that I could only read this for the first time once broke my heart. In the end I managed to stretch it over a week. It’s been a while since I felt I’ve really connected with a book on this level.

It also gave me a reason to be happy I endured reading crime and punishment, allowing me to understand at least a couple of the references within the text.

Note that I’ve finished I feel the books absence almost painfully. Maybe reading more Tartt is the remedy required here, maybe it’ll make it so much worse. I guess I’ll just have to find out.

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[reemillustrated]

snoopy read a little life... thoughts and prayers

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of course he's read the secret history!!

[pimpofgore]

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The holiday cottage I’m staying in has very cute windows

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Despite eagerly awaiting this book for months, I took me several more to actually pick it up and read it. I couldn’t tell you why, or I probably could if I really dove into it, but now’s not the time for that.

All for the game holds a special place in my heart. I read the trilogy in the year leading up to me going to university and it inspired me to join my uni’s lacrosse team, which I would later go on to vice-captain. I met some amazing people on that team, and the sport had been a massive part of my uni journey.

There’s plenty of criticism of the writing of this story, and I get some of it. But believe the main goal of a story is to make people feel things, and these books make me feel alright, more intensely than any others.

This latest entry into the series did not disappoint. Despite some of the series larger than life aspects, its characters have always been so heart-breakingly human. And that’s what always brings me crawling back to the series, to reread it over and over. I see myself and the people around me reflected in these characters. I see them go through the unimaginable and I see them heal. There’s a lot of beauty in that.

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It’s very very late but this is my blog so I can do what I want. All the books I read in 2023!

There were some books in this list that disappointed me, but for the most part I had a blast reading them.

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Somehow it’s already June and I’ve made no effort so far to comment on any of the books I’ve read this year, so here’s the round up so far. I’ve had a busy year, with the highlights being writing my dissertation, and running my first half and full marathons! Unfortunately this has left me with limited time to actually sit down and read. I’m off interacting around Europe next week so hopefully I’ll get some good book time in on all of those trains. I’ve color coded this list by month and it’s clear to see how I’ve read less and less as things have gotten busier.

My reading goal for this year is to read 50 books, as you can see I am quite behind, but there’s still time to pull it back. I got very into the classics last year which is great, but there’s something very special about reading sillier books. I think this list shows off some good range and I’ve had a lot of fun reading each and every one of these! Bunny by Mona Awad (my first book of the year) left a very strong impression on me and I’ve been chasing the bizarre feeling I had reading it ever since. I’d like to also call out The Collected Schizophrenias by Esmé Weijun Wang, I rarely enjoy non-fiction works but this series of personal essay really touched me, a perfect mix of educational and heartfelt, if I was asked to recommend just one of these books it would be this one.

That’s all from me for now! Till next time :)

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I can definitively say that I have never read a book like this one.

Case Study is about a young woman who believes her sister was driven to suicide by her psychiatrist and is on a mission to prove it, this premise alone was enough for me to grab myself a copy of this book, but it’s the way it is written that really makes this one stand out.

It starts with a preface from the author explaining how the book came to be. Burnet was sent a series of notebooks from the mysterious Mr Grey which contained a story that Mr Grey believed would be of interest to the author.

Neither Mr Grey nor Burnet were able to verify the credibility of the story within these notebooks, so you enter into this journey knowing you will have to make up your own mind on whether what you are reading is fact or fiction (of course google is a great help in this endeavor but I recommend reading the book and trying to figure it out for yourself first, it’s worth it).

The book is split into sections denoting the 5 notebooks as well as biographical sections on the life of Braithwaite which creates a complex and compelling impression of the man himself.

This book left me with more questions than it did answers, but in the best way possible.

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For most of this summer I’ve been staying in my childhood home. This means I’ve had access to all the unread books I bought during my angst filled teenage years (I say as if it was really that long ago). I decided to start plowing my way through some of them and The One Memory of Flora Banks seemed like a good place to start. I remember being especially excited to lick this up by in the day and I can’t figure out why it sat gathering dust. It’s been a little while since I’ve read any YA fiction so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised. I was expecting a romance but what I got was a thoughtful and emotional story about finding yourself and being courageous, even when the world feels like a very scary place. It was a story about finding friendship and compassion even at the edge of the world and knowing that just because someone is doing something out of genuine love, that does not always make it right.

I’m very glad I finally gave this book a chance.

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I travel around a fair bit, and in every train station airport or boat terminal I found myself at I would always see this book. Everytime I saw it I would flip it over, read the blurb, and think ‘this sounds good, I’d like to read it’, and then proceed to put it down and walk away. So when I saw it on sale in an outlet mall I decided to take it as a sign and finally take it home - where it immediately went to the purgatory that is my ‘to be read’ pile.

I went to Spain with some friends recently and brought it with me in honor of all those times I’d encountered it while traveling, and very quickly regretted leaving it so long to delve into the story.

Osman is an amazingly clever writer, he had me falling for every red herring he placed - letting me think I’d solved it every time (though that be a testament to my own ego). The story was packed full of lovable but flawed characters who are all given their own satisfying arcs and who you can truly connect with.

I will definitely be grabbing the next two in the series, I’m looking forward to seeing these stories continued.

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I first noticed Territory of Light because I recognized the name Tsushima. I quickly remembered that this was the daughter of famous novelist Osamu Dazai. It occurred to me then that I’d never read a ‘classic’ that was written by a woman. So, I brought the book home. I quickly felt as though I had found a soulmate is Tsushima. Despite having almost nothing in common with the unnamed narrator, I found myself relating to her deeply, I thought that if I was living her life, I would probably be making most of the same decisions she was (bar a couple, such as her relationship with Sugiyama). I found myself buried in this book in every moment I had to spare and I was devastated once it was over. Though at the same time I was also content, this is one of those stories that ends in an overwhelming satisfying way, so much so I could not imagine any other ending for it. The way this women’s story is told through her life in this one apartment was a subtle kind of genius that I really appreciated. I will be reading more of her work.