I’m not sure when exactly something can be considered the home stretch, but I think we’re getting there with our move. We have a closing date on our Ann Arbor house and we’ll be moving east at the end of October. However, there is still so much to be done that I’m not able to commit to this blog the way I want to. Bear with me, by November I should be back on track.
September was a big month with lots of new releases. I’ve had mixed results so far, but my reading brain right now is struggling. For this reason, I’m calling these books September misses, but you may disagree.
Published by Minotaur Books
Publication date: August 27, 2019
Amazon
There are times when a favorite author’s book doesn’t work and it makes me furious (you know who you are), but then there are times when it is an author I love so much I’m crushed, not infuriated, by the situation. In this case, it’s even my number one pick for fall reading which makes it feel even worse. I’m talking about Louise Penny’s new novel, A Better Man. I wanted to love this novel! I was frantic to know what happened to Gamache and Beauvoir, but while I got answers they came wrapped in a plot and writing that didn’t hold my interest the way Penny usually does.
One of the aspects hardest to bear is the feeling that characters are moving past charming quirks and familiarity to becoming caricatures. There was no growth or change in any of the Three Pines citizens I’ve come to love. In fact, everything about the novel felt stale and rushed. Gamache is still being vilified and beset by the establishment that hates him and wants to bring him down. It was also unnerving to read over-embellished sentences from the normally restrained Penny. So much weeping, gasping, wringing of hands. This is painful to write because she is at the top of my go-to author list, but I feel as if the pressure to write a book a year is too much. I’d gladly wait two years to read the Louise Penny I love.
Published by Harper Paperbacks
Publication date: September 10, 2019
I’ll start this quick review with a caveat: If you’re drawn to The Starlet and the Spy because it has Marilyn Monroe on the cover and the synopsis talks about a South Korean woman’s relationship with Marilyn, then don’t read this novel. It’s not about Marilyn Monroe. The connection between Marilyn and Alice is tenuous at best. They meet when Marilyn goes to Korea after the war—hence the iconic photo on the book’s cover—and Alice is the government interpreter. Beyond that this is one young woman’s story life in the aftermath of the Korean war. It does well in capturing the turmoil and deprivation caused by the war, but falters beyond that.
Educated and wealthy Alice works first for the Communist party and then as a spy. Now, the war is over and she is a refugee shunned by most people. At times, the writing is poignant and beautifully expressed, but the story is convoluted, past and present get muddled, and the end result is a disjointed narrative that falls short.
Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons
Publication date: August 20, 2019
Amazon
Ania is very very rich and very very bored. Her father is hypochondriacal, the only man she trusts is older and cranky, and her best friend is a sweet girl with no money and in love with a completely unsuitable man. Ania is invited to all the best parties and adored by many, but she herself has no interest in marrying. Sound familiar? If you’re thinking Jane Austen’s Emma, then you’re right. Only think modern-day India and the kind of money that’s hard to fathom and that would be Mahesh Rao’s debut novel, Polite Society.
Austen is one of the most often commonly updated and re-imagined authors out there. For this reason, I give author Mahesh Rao credit for expanding Emma’s frothy all-ends-well story into territory that is not so neatly resolved. He echoes many of the themes from the original, but updates them in a way specific to the explosion of wealth in Southeast Asia and the ever-widening economic and social gap it created. It kept Polite Society and its resolution fresh, but I have may set my sights too high because Kevin Kwan blurbed the book and he wrote the outrageous and addictive Crazy Rich Asians trilogy. This didn’t live up to that standard, but wasn’t was September miss. Light, fast fun.
Published by Viking
Publication date: August 27, 2019
I’ve always been a sucker for novels about female friendships, but sadly, I did not enjoy The Other’s Gold, the story of four friends who meet in college. Each of the girls has a defining moment in her life and the novel is divided into the four parts when that event happened. Interesting premise, but I was completely put off by the author’s writing style. There’s a lot of explanation of the girls’ emotions which, when mixed with numerous mixed-tense, run-on sentences aggravated me and killed whatever flow there could have been. The setting is modern day, but these girls’ responses to life events is overwrought bordering on histrionic. I kept thinking the novel was set in the 1950s.
So, the novel didn’t work for me at all, but two of my favorite bloggers loved it. I’ll concede this one could be me, not the book. Please check out their reviews if you’re interested. Susie at Novel Visits and Sarah at Sarah’s Book Shelves.
How is your September reading going so far? Any books you were looking forward to that didn’t pan out?
I must say I disagree with you about Louis Penny’s “The Better Man.” I thought it was one of the best of the books in the Gamache series. At every turn, I found myself asking, “What makes someone the better man or woman?” This book was a study in humanity, and I felt that my friends in Three Pines were all struggling, in their own way, with that question.
That is a great take on the novel! Thank you for sharing your thoughts- it’s what I love most about reviewing. I didn’t get that deeply into it. There was just something about her writing style in this book that felt different than previous books. Far more dramatic. I still love all the residents of Three Pines and look forward to what she writes next.
Catherine, I am actually thrilled to know I’m not the only one who felt this way about A Better Man. I could have written every word you wrote. I’m crushed too.
I’m not happy that we both felt this way but am glad I’m not completely alone. Honestly, I kept wondering if wrote it or if she had a new editor because the tone was so different from her other books.
I thought maybe I had just outgrown the series, but that’s an interesting thought. It seems to me that things changed when she lost her husband. So disappointing.
I really don’t know what to think. I feel as if she may have felt pressured to get this one out. It didn’t even seem like her writing. I’m hoping it was a one-off and her next will be back to the Penny I love!
I also felt this way, and gave it 3 stars just because I felt I had to because I love the previous books in the series so much. I really hope this is just a one off, otherwise I will be very sad.
I know! I wonder if she pushed too fast after the death of her husband? I always want to read her, but maybe she needs a break.
I’m sorry you’ve had so many misses this month. Just when you need to escape into a book most, too! My reading has definitely cooled from the hot streak I was on all spring and summer. I feel like a couple books I’ve just had to get through…or not. The Topeka School and How to Be a Family to name a couple. My September Clearing the Shelves next week will be a mixed bag for sure. Looking at my reading for the rest of the year, I feel like I don’t have a lot to look forward to, so will be searching for good backlist books I’ve missed.
You were on an amazing streak! I think I still have some great October books ahead, but I haven’t even looked at them. I like when things col down at the end of the year and I can just do free reading. I’m going to need the break by then!
I completely agree with you on The Other’s Gold. I picked it up on a rec from Gail at The Readerly Report and was very disappointed. I did not care about any of the characters and just wanted it to be over! I usually love Louise Penny, but I am only at about book 7 or 8 in the series, so I won’t get to this one for awhile.
It seems as if The Other’s Gold is one of the novels that epitomizes how tastes vary in books. Two bloggers I trust loved it and I could hardly finish it.
You still have so much Greta Penny reading ahead of you! This is the first book of hers in a long time that I didn’t love.
Oh, bummer about The Other’s Gold–I loved it, too. It’s weird that I didn’t really even notice the mixed tenses and run-on sentences. Usually that kind of thing bugs me. It might have been that it was really the right book for me–I love friendship stories–so the mechanics mattered less.
Sorry about your Louise Penny disappointment! I’ve only read the first in the series so I’m not hooked yet, but I do want to read the others. It’s disappointing when a book you’re looking forward to doesn’t live up to your hopes!
I’m sure it was a bad combination of things right now, because I will forgive a multitude of sins if I’m feeling the book. I just didn’t get it from this.
You have lots of lovely reading ahead of you. I thought Pennys’s first book was slow but then she hits her stride and it’s marvelous. This is her first stumble for me.
Great analysis of why the new Penny didn’t work for you, Catherine. Louise Penny is one of the most lovely people you could ever hope to meet, but the Gamache series just isn’t my thing for whatever reason (probably because I prefer more grit and gristle). I know this feeling with other series and it’s such a bummer. I’ll be curious to see other reviews. I had The Other’s Gold on my list because I love a good multi-POV tragedy book (I know, I’m horrible), but this put me off. Thanks for taking the bullet. And I would not have had any desire to read the Marilyn Monroe clad book anyway, but I HATE IT when covers are deceptive. Bad is one thing, deceptive yet another. Boo.
I think we’re collectively over deception- far too much of it in the world right now and in ways that matter a lot more than fiction.
I’m sure you have a lot going on so I can see where certain reads would miss their mark this month. Although I thought Tea Obreht’s western novel Inland was worthwhile … it was more of a slog than I wanted it to be. So I’ll add that one to your list. Good luck with your move. Going across the country is always an epic change. But remember you have to come back to the Portland area when retirement comes. 🙂
I’m already counting down the years until we return. Actually, I’m not thinking beyond getting this mover over with and starting life int Ann Arbor before the ice comes.