My June in reading

I read a little less than I wanted to in June because there was a book I ought to have put down, but didn’t for the sake of the author. I was shocked and disappointed. Luckily, I devoured a few other wonderful books during the month.

Godshot by Chelsea Bieker

Is your novel about a cult? Great—I’ll read it. Godshot was particularly sweet and sad. It tells the story of Lacey May, a young girl who lives with her alcoholic mother in drought-blighted Peaches, California, worshipping in a small cult led by Pastor Vern, who promises to bring the rain again. All at once, Lacey starts her period, her mother abandons her, and Pastor Vern calls all the fertile young women to perform a special duty. But with the help of the phone sex operators at the outskirts of town, she may learn to live her life for herself alone. At first the book was somewhat slow-moving, but once Lacey heads out to search for her mother, it was like a roller coaster drop—I couldn’t stop reading. I highly recommend this one—with content warnings for sexual abuse and substance abuse, of course.

The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin

I adored Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy—surely I’d love her new novel featuring avatars of New York City’s boroughs fighting off an existential, Lovecraftian threat, right? WRONG. This is the novel I should have set down. I kept expecting it to get better and it just…didn’t. Since the characters are avatars of boroughs, they end up being mostly stereotypes of those boroughs—there’s very little character development. Plus, the novel features one of my least favorite sci-fi/fantasy tropes: the characters somehow just know what they’re supposed to do! Magically! With no explanation! Ugh. I’d skip it if I were you, but maybe you’ll like it. Go read the Broken Earth trilogy instead.

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

I recently watched the Shadow and Bone series on Netflix, based mostly on Bardugo’s initial Grishaverse trilogy—and the whole time I kept thinking, they should really just focus on Kaz Brekker and his gang of thieves instead. Six of Crows does focus on Kaz, Inej, Jesper, Nina, and Matthias—and Wylan, a delightful character who didn’t make it into the Netflix series. I basically swallowed this book whole, and then immediately put a library hold on the sequel. Hopefully it will get here soon!

Boy Oh Boy by Zachary Doss

I briefly met Zach Doss at the 2016 AWP Conference in D.C.—just a few weeks before he died. He was funny and clever—his reading had me laughing aloud. His posthumous story collection Boy Oh Boy reflects that spirit. Written in the second person, these mostly flash stories tell bizarre, hilarious, heartbreaking, and sometimes gross stories about “your boyfriend.” Think Kelly Link meets Amelia Gray spying on a fictional gay couple, or couples. I loved this book—you should absolutely pick it up.

If They Come for Us by Fatimah Asghar

I read a few of these poems when I first grabbed the collection in 2018 (remember going to book launches in person?), but I never read the whole collection straight through until now. It’s beautiful. With a blend of humor and piercing vulnerability, Asghar’s poems describe growing up as a Pakistani-American orphan—her concerns about fitting in, how violence has affected how she views the world and how the world views her. You should especially check this book out if you’re interested in unusual forms—it has everything from bingo cards to crossword puzzles.

Of Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia

This novel reminded me of Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing—but I actually liked it better than Homegoing. In chapters that skip between decades and generations, Garcia tells the story of Jeanette, a Cuban-American woman fighting an opioid addiction—and the story of her mother, Carmen, and her grandmother, and so on. Not to mention the intertwined story of a young girl who seeks shelter with Jeanette when her mother is arrested by ICE. This novel is rich and tender. The plot of the ending seems highly improbable—but if you prioritize your emotions while reading it rather than your logic, I think it works. Content warnings for substance abuse and physical abuse.

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

Wilkie Collins must have been paid by the word. Every time I thought this classic mystery novel was about to wrap up, something even more dramatic happened. There are mistaken identities, poisonings, fires, cruel lunatic asylums, star-crossed lovers, foreign secret societies—you name it, it’s there. That said, I enjoyed listening to this one on the Phoebe Reads a Mystery podcast. I’d read The Moonstone, but never this more famous Collins novel.