A Mid-Year Reading Roundup

We're talking 3 star and above fiction.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

By Gabrielle Zevin • ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

One blurb called this the “Great American Gamer Novel,” and I think that’s apt. Spanning three decades, this 2022 novel follows the creative partnership of two video game designers who met as children, fell out, and reunited in college. Sam and Sadie–along with their producer, Marx–build an unexpected bestseller and are catapulted into increasingly great professional success and personal strife. Sam and Sadie’s story is expertly layered and genuine here; their journey felt real in a way some coming-of-age stories don’t.

This is a novel about so many things: creative partnership, physical suffering, grief, being mixed race, human connection and conflict, love and friendship, and play. (It started a little slow, but by page 100 I was completely hooked.) Read this for the questions it asks about the place of friendship in romantic love, the creative process, and living with grief.

“Sam's doctor said to him, ‘The good news is that the pain is in your head.’ But I am in my head, Sam thought.”

Content Ratings • Sexual References: 3.75/5 • Language: 3/5 • Violence: 2/5

Klara and the Sun

By Kazuo Ishiguro • ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I wrote a full review of this beautiful novel last month here on Substack. Here’s an excerpt, and read the full thing here.

“But really, this novel is about what it means to love. What does it mean to love a person, when you could build an AI to act just like them? What does it mean to love the source of your life–for Klara, the Sun, but for us: what does it mean to truly love God? What do we owe him in return for his sustenance and nourishment? In a world that has rejected love and faith, can we really survive without them?” Review.

Content Ratings • Sexual References: 1/5 • Language: 1/5 • Violence: 1/5

Who Is Maud Dixon?

By Alexandra Andrews • ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

File this one under "bad people behaving badly."

Florence is a struggling, wannabe writer living in New York and generally wandering aimlessly. After being fired from her job, she stumbles into a role as assistant to the mysterious writer Maud Dixon (a pseudonym for no-one-knows-who). So begins Florence’s slow devolution.

On the surface this is just a summer thriller. But at the heart of this story is a woman who doesn't know who she is, and takes all of her cues from the people she aspires to be like. She doesn't actually know what she likes, what she wants, or why. She has no real identity, and so she becomes a copy of others. This is a story about not having the courage–and the humility–to learn and own all the good and bad parts of yourself, work through them, and come out with a vision on the other side. This is a story about identity theft at the deepest level.

Content Ratings • Sexual References: 2.5/5 • Language: 1.5/5 • Violence: 3/5

The Road to Roswell

By Connie Willis • ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The publisher's copy calls this a romantic comedy, but I don't think I'd classify if that way. Francie lands in Roswell, the home of the UFO festival, to be maid of honor in her best friend's wedding to a UFO nut. With many an eye roll, Francie steels herself to talk her friend out of this wedding, but before she can make any progress she's–you guessed it–abducted by an alien. A rollicking adventure ensues.

This novel is fun without being frothy, and takes an unexpected approach to the typical close encounter story. I loved the ending.

Content Ratings • Sexual References: 1.5/5 • Language: 1/5 • Violence: 1.5/5

A River Enchanted

By Rebecca Ross • ⭐⭐⭐⭐

A Scottish-inspired fantasy set on the fictional island of Cadence, where the four elements (wind, water, earth, fire) hold powerful sway over the people’s way of life. Young girls are disappearing off the island; Adaira, heiress of the island, summons her childhood friend/rival, Jack, home to help find the girls and restore peace.

Lyrical, gorgeous writing. Cozy, wind-swept setting. Great character development.

Content Ratings • Sexual References: 2.5/5 • Language: 0/5 • Violence: 2/5

Tom Lake

By Ann Patchett • ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Lara's three daughters have returned home to the family's cherry orchard as the pandemic is at its height. Between rows of trees, they beg their mother to recount the story of her summer spent acting at the Tom Lake theater and in a romance with the now-world-famous Peter Duke.

The portions of this novel set in the present, where mother and daughters share a story while sharing the farmwork, just glow. Patchett's prose is reminiscent to me of Wallace Stegner or Leif Enger in Virgil Wander. There's something very mid-20th century about the way she writes in Tom Lake. As always, her insights and turns of phrase are beautiful, and she says such true things about the world and human nature with concision and wit. In Tom Lake, she again revisits themes of womanhood, the physical and emotional dynamics of bearing children, and marriage. In the ways this story is a meditation on motherhood, the warmth and glow of the love of a family, the contentment in a simple life–I loved it.

In the ways this is a searing portrait of the decisions you make in your youth that you can't take back–I felt unmoored and saddened. I wanted Lara to be cut-and-dry and she wasn't. Like many of Patchett's main characters, she makes a moral decision at the very end of this book that really disappointed me. Lara didn't have to make the choice she did at the end of this story, and it even felt directly contrary to the portrait we see of her throughout the prior hundreds of pages.

I think this is Patchett's best, but best doesn't always mean morally exemplary.

Content Ratings • Sexual References: 2.5/5 • Language: 1/5 • Violence: 1/5

The Last Ranger

By Peter Heller • ⭐⭐⭐

Ren, a park ranger for Yellowstone, discovers an alarming pattern of violence against the park’s wildlife and, eventually, others working on the grounds. As he investigates he’s brought face to face with a group at enmity with the preservation of wildlife and peace in the park system.

Heller’s nature writing is always good, and Ren as a main character felt very human, but I just needed more to happen. This moved slow, and really the plot was more of a platform for Ren to explore his own grief and desires for the future. That’s not bad, I just prefer a little more get-up-and-go.

Content Ratings • Sexual References: 2.5/5 • Language: 1/5 • Violence: 3/5

Yellowface

By R.F. Kuang • ⭐⭐⭐✨

June Hayward steals the manuscript of her friend/rival, Athena Liu, after Athena’s death and passes it off as her own. What follows is a tale of corruption, the publishing industry’s hypocrisy, and the devolution that follows when a person does a bad thing and tries to live with their guilt.

This was really a wild ride. There were moments when I was enjoying myself, and then moments where I was really dreading picking this back up due to the morally grey main character. But I think that was at least partially intentional by Kuang. It felt preachy a couple too many times, but the rawness kept you believing.

Content Ratings • Sexual References: 3.5/5 • Language: 3/5 • Violence: 2.5/5

Piranesi

By Susanna Clarke • ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Y’all already know! Just read it.

Content Ratings • Sexual References: 1.5/5 • Language: 1.5/5 • Violence: 2.5/5

Magpie Murders

By Anthony Horowitz • ⭐⭐⭐

Horowitz weaves together two stories in Magpie Murders. In one, book editor Susan Ryeland is reviewing the manuscript for the last “Atticus Pünd” book by renowned author Alan Conway. Soon we’re transported to the novel-within-the-novel, where Atticus Pünd is on the case in a sleepy English village, attempting to solve a double murder.

Very much an homage to Agatha Christie, this was a quality mystery that just felt too long. Christie’s magic is her pacing and skill with plotting.

Content Ratings • Sexual References: 1.5/5 • Language: 1/5 • Violence: 2/5