What can I say - I was so intrigued by the concept of Quentin Tarantino writing a novel that I had to pick up his novelisation of the film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Not entirely sure why I was surprised that a world-renowned screenwriter would be able to expertly craft a book, but I was! And yes - that is my confession that this was a 4 star read for me. I have never watched the film, but that did not matter at all. This delves deeply into many of his characters, and takes a meandering journey through Hollywood in the sixties, complete with: fascinating film knowledge, a creative cast of characters, and a reading experience that for some reason reminds me of eating a good meal. Would recommend!
I was much more optimistic about Mary Oliver's Dream Work, because BookTube icon uncarley recommended it, and rightly so! If Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was a good meal, Dream Work was a waterfall on a lush mountainside. Every poem was richly gorgeous, with ruminations on nature and life and death, in a uniquely brilliant voice. This poetry collection really opened my eyes to the magic of the world around me and its dreamy quality really touched me. One of my favourite poetry collections I've ever read - this was a library book so I couldn't annotate, but I took pictures of so many of the poems.
As arguably one of Joan Didion's most famous books, of course I had to read The Year of Magical Thinking next. This one was particularly poignant for me: I was hoping that reading it might provide me with some epiphany about loss in my own life. It did not, but it was strangely comforting. I say strangely, because it was so very sad. But following Didion on her own journey through grief, as she turns over every stone and methodically searches for some kind of meaning in the madness, there was just something about it. Either this or Blue Nights have been my favourite works of hers thus far, just because of how deeply personal they are. 4.5 stars.
I love Toni Morrison. That's not a particularly groundbreaking thing to say, but it's true: I think she's a brilliant writer. And to discover that The Bluest Eye was her first ever novel? What a mind! In true Morrison fashion, this tragic tale of girlhood meanders across time and place, tracing the lives of several characters all over the streets of the city, and eventually circling around onto Percola: the central figure of the story, who clings onto a horrifying hopefulness in the face of terrible things. This a gorgeous, miserable little novel and such an astounding debut by a great American author. 4 stars.
For most of my time reading Outline by Rachel Cusk, I was very uncertain as to how I really felt about it. Cusk's prose is gorgeous and the way she evokes the stuffy feeling of a summer in Europe is scarily realistic, but there was very little to grasp onto. We learn almost nothing about our protagonist, and the novel is essentially a compilation of short stories about the people around her, loosely strung together by her enigmatic presence - and I am not a fan of short story collections, because I love to get to know a story through the eyes of specific characters. However, as the story progresses, minute details pass through the elaborate descriptions of apartments and the sea, and the vacuum at the centre of the novel becomes more and more enticing. I was originally going to give this 3, but I'm bumping it up to 4. I did want to read the rest of the trilogy, but never got around to it. Here's hoping for the future.
Another novel about grief, Han Kang's The White Book was my next read. Now, I was disappointed by The Vegetarian, although it was still good, but I was much more enamoured by this little book, giving it 4 stars. The prose is lyrical yet paralysing, and Kang truly brings both the city and her loss to life in a sparing amount of words. And this is unrelated to the actual contents of the book, but the pages were so crisp, and I have to respect the grift of plumping out the book by filling it with blank White pages. Some gorgeous photographs as well.
To look at this month's book list, you'd think I was really going through it this month. Yet another novel about the loss of a loved one, it's Joan Didion's Blue Nights. The opening paragraphs to this are otherwordly and stunning; the concept of the blue nights is just breathtaking. Now, reviewers don't seem to take to this novel as much as I did (giving it 4 stars), but I found Didion's writing continued to be brilliant, and it was a wonderful tribute to her daughter, truly.
Finally, I made it back to my favourite genre: crime fiction! I've heard a lot about My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite and when I spotted it in the library, I snatched it up. It was a decent novel, which I gave 3.5 stars, and the dynamics between characters were fascinating. However I did not enjoy any of said characters: they were all pretty flat and irritating. However, it was a very interesting plot with a great ending.
Susanna Kaysen's autobiographical Girl, Interrupted was brilliant, as was its film adaptation. Exploring the world of an asylum in the 60s was very interesting, and Susanna as a character was very endearing: it did truly seem as though she was just a regular girl, interrupted by forces outside of her control. I don't have a lot to say outside of that I enjoyed reading this, and Kaysen obviously wrote with a real sense of reflection about herself and the women around her. 4 stars from me.
If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha was a very well-written exploration of the lives of women in South Korea, and a rumination on the many different ways that the patriarchy lets us down. The most interesting character by far was Kyuri, however all of the storylines were intriguing. Because there were so many, a few of these were left as loose ends, but of course that's just life. It was an overall satisfying read, which I gave 4 stars, and had some brilliant passages.
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