Issue 61: Everything I read in April
A new favorite on queer love + the torment of not finishing a book
I know that so many people say — I have been busy, so I haven’t read anything. But in my case, the opposite is true. April was super busy over here, so I ended up reading A LOT. Through the chaos, reading was my anchor and my space of retreat, and I feel so grateful that I have this THING that I can count on to carry me through and demand nothing of me but to make time.
Below are all the books I read - 10 of them, which is A LOT for me - in the order I read them + brief reader notes about each one. I call them reader notes on purpose. I am a reader, not a critic. I simply aspire to share enough about each book so that you can decide if you want to research it further on your own before ultimately picking up the book or not.
Please tell me if this works for you as readers of this newsletter. Is this too much and too overwhelming? Should I maybe just pick my favorite book or two of the month to review?
Books mentioned:
Ripe by Sara Rose Etter
Molly by Blake Butler
Crying in H-Mart by Michelle Zauner
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Biography of X by Catherine Lacey
Clear by Carys Davies
Before the coffee gets cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
The professor’s house by Willa Cather
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
Upstream: Selected Essays by Mary Oliver
📚 Ripe by Sara Rose Etter (audiobook) - A young woman moves to San Francisco after landing a non-engineering job in a startup. Her initial excitement is quickly displaced by the ridiculous excesses, unethical business practices and heartlessness of Silicon Valley, especially as it contrasts with the evolving poverty and unhoused population crisis that the city is experiencing. Ripe is gripping enough to read - who doesn’t love to rage-read about toxic bosses and the egomaniacal men-children that San Francisco start-up culture has become synonymous with. But it didn’t get much further than fictionalizing what already feels like well-known facts about this particular culture. If you are interested in reading a book about a young woman at a fucked-up startup, I would instead recommend you check out Anna Weiner’s memoir Uncanny Valley.
📚 Molly by Blake Butler - Blake Butler wrote this book in the aftermath of his young wife Molly’s death by suicide. Molly Brodak was an award-winning poet, professor and baker. She was also troubled and complicated, likely due to serious childhood trauma. Her death was shocking but not a total surprise to Butler. The book stirred up a lot of controversy because of Butler’s use of Molly’s diaries which he read after her death and in which he uncovers secrets that impact his understanding of their marriage. As a writer, I completely understand the impulse to write your way through a difficult period as a way to process the experience. But I also felt assaulted by what felt like an almost cruel enumeration of Molly’s various infractions. Butler seems to want to paint a full picture of a real human being and not reduce her to the consequences of her death or the gravity of her mistakes, and yet the only way I can describe this book is trauma porn. Read at your own risk.
📚 Crying in H-Mart by Michelle Zauner (audiobook) - I absolutely adored this memoir by Michelle Zauner (aka Japanese Breakfast) about her evolving relationship with her Korean mother and the vortex that followed her unexpected cancer diagnosis and death. For me, a good memoir has to work on multiple levels - the author’s experience must be interesting, of course, and they must be able to tell their story in a unique way. But I also want to be pushed to use the memoir as a jump off point in considering questions and ideas beyond the authors individual experience. Zauner does such an amazing job reflecting on her bi-racial identity and especially the confusion of feeling not American enough in Portland, OR where she grew up and at the same time not Korean enough when visiting Korea. She also writes so beautifully about how her mom’s ways created so much conflict between them early on and how eventually she realized the cultural drivers behind her mom’s behaviors. How much for her mom to love someone meant to be willing to suffer for them. 💔
📚 The Awakening by Kate Chopin (audiobook) - I already wrote about this book, so I won’t repeat myself. Just, again, wanted to gush about how current the story felt for me and how much it has inspired me to read more early 20th century proto-feminist authors. Apparently, Chopin’s book was more or less forgotten until in 1972, Linda Wolfe wrote a piece in the New York Times about it and that brought the book to the cult status it has today. This part of Wolfe’s article floored me:
Kate Chopin has been something of an obsession for me since I first read her work twelve years ago. She did her best writing before the turn of the century; she was dead by 1904; yet some of her short stories and her psychological novel, “The Awaken ing,” speak to me as pertinently as any fiction published this year or last. It is uncanny, nothing else. I can not read “The Awakening” without having constantly to pinch myself in wonder at how it could have been written over seventy years ago.
The book was published in 1895. In 1972, Linda Woolfe found it uncanny. In 2024, I did too.
📚 Biography of X by Catherine Lacey - Aaaaaand now for a change of pace, this is an uber contemporary and genre-pushing work by Catherine Lacey. The book opens up with the death of X, an iconoclastic artist and her widow’s desire to push against the inaccuracies in the unauthorized biography published about her life. What begins as a story of love lost, grief and the desire of a lover to set the record straight, becomes a romp through an alternate history of 20th century America, a story about the creative impulse, one’s desire to evolve and re-invent themselves. Lacey’s book found me at just the right time, personally. As some of you know, I recently completed the first draft of my manuscript and while I have intentionally been letting it sit, I have started wondering if I am actually avoiding it. As I was reading Lacey’s book, I kept thinking… wow, I didn’t know we are allowed to write like this, to do THIS in a novel. Apparently, we can. And, I know feel like… we SHOULD. This novel is now going on my shelf of LIGHTHOUSE books. As
just wrote in his newsletter, to be able to shed the desire to be liked and to be likable sets you free in your work ← Biography of X echos that message both in substance and in form.📚 Clear by Carys Davies - MY FAVORITE BOOK OF THE MONTH and, quite possibly the year, the decade, the century. I loved this so much. The novel is set in 1800s Scotland during the infamous Highland Clearances. It centers a kind-hearted, idealistic minister sent to a remote island to evict the last living resident who has no intention to leave. What begins as a story about conviction and faith, becomes a love letter to the gentle touches of nature and its reflection in language. It is also a story of the most unlikely queer love and the heart’s ability to expand when allowed to. I felt so disarmed and tender reading this book, it really moved me. , I think you would really like this one.
📚 Before the coffee gets cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi - This is a story about a magical coffee shop in Tokyo where, if you sit at a specific table and follow certain rules, you will be able to travel back in time. Even though said travel can’t help you change the present or the future, the cafe still attracts the regretful and the brokenhearted, those looking for a way to say what they had not been able to say before. I had such high hopes for this book but, maybe because I read it right after the magnificent experience of reading Clear, I was just not patient enough for it. I ended up DNF-ing (did not finish) it and felt so guilt-ridden over it but it is one of my goals as a reader to DNF more books… so, that was that. My friend Linda told me it’s worth pushing through to the end so I may pick it back up at some point.
📚 The Professor’s House by Willa Cather (audiobook) - My first Willa Cather and I now want more. This book reminded me of Stoner by John Williams (which is a huge favorite of mine) in its exploration of the inner lives of intellectual, reflective people entering the later stages of life. The book tells the story of Professor St. Peter dealing with grief and family changes after the death of Tom Outland, his beloved student and his daughter's ex-fiancé. I loved the scenes that focused on the professor’s relationship with his two daughters and their respective husbands and, again, wondered if I would have ever appreciated this work as a younger person, before I knew how much tension and competition can exist between people who love each other deeply.
📚 Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton - When I shared my library books sale loot last week, my friend Rivers emailed me to say that Ethan Frome and Metamorphosis were triggering PTSD from AP English, so of course, I had to pick this up. 😂 I got similar comments from others who saw me reading the book in a coffeeshop. One girl who looked like she was 12 to me which means that she was probably in college, approached me and said - that ending was unhinged - and walked away. 🫣 Y’all. She was right. I loved this book so much and I am glad it was short because it was so suspenseful, I could barely handle it.
📚 Upstream: Selected Essays by Mary Oliver - Gorgeous essays, sweet Mary Oliver. There is nothing I can say about this one other than… yeah. Every time I read a page touched by Mary Oliver, I want to grab a notebook and go for a walk in the woods.
Favorite books of the year so far:
January - Foster by Claire Keegan
February - Small things like these by Claire Keegan
March - Stoner by John Williams
April - Clear by Carys Davies
This past month introduced me to so many new readers and writers. I am loving connecting with so many of you and feel like I have finally found my corner of Substack. Thank you for the notes, the book recommendations and just giving me a general feeling of having found my people. 🤓📚❤️
A question for you:
Have you read any of my April titles? What did you think?
What was your favorite read this past month?
What a great month - there was something in the air in April for us to have both read 10 books! I’m glad you loved Crying in H Mart - I did too and it absolutely made me cry, a lot. I am particularly interested in your comments on Lacey’s ‘Biography of X’ - I read ‘Pew’ by Lacey last month and absolutely loved it and since have been very interested in reading ‘Biography of X’ too!
I basically never read fiction so having a PUBLIC RECOMMENDATION has me intrigued :) Thank you xoxo sounds amazing