June '23: 5,000+ pages but not a single 5-star
Wordsmith Monthly: Volume 2, Issue 6
Welcome to Wordsmith Monthly!
More than a dozen books this month, wow. I did listen to more audiobooks than I usually do, which I fall in and out of the habit of doing. I’m not sure why I stray from doing this consistently, because it definitely feels like a life hack in getting more books in my brain.
Here’s what I cover-to-covered in June:
If June Was Food, It Would Be My Charcuterie Board Month
I sampled something from what felt like every genre: fantasy, scifi, romance, historical nonfiction, memoir, literary fiction, clifi, satire, adventure… what genres am I even missing? But though I read a lot and liked and enjoyed a lot of it, I didn’t have a 5-star read, which is a bummer, since that’s a goal for myself this year, to focus more on quality and less on quantity. But! Still a very successful reading month for me because I tried so many types of books.
By the numbers
Books I finished this month: 14
Average book star rating for this month’s books: 3.35 (-2.5 over May)
PLES average: 29.28 (-.22 over May)
Pages I read this month: 5,064 pages (+1,840 over May)
I actually have too many books to fit on my pie chart this month so I had to skip it!
Snuggled In the (Book) Covers
The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann: Four stars, historical nonfiction, 352 pages. I loved Endurance earlier this year, and greatly enjoyed this read (it was just shy of a 5-star read because I felt the ending was a little flat compared to the rest of the book). If you enjoy an adventure tale, this is a pretty interesting look at how humans turn on one another. One line summary: After The Wager shipwrecks in the 1740s, the crew mutinies in trying to survive — but there are two sides to every story.
PLES: 35/40. Plot: 8 / Learning: 10 / Enjoyment: 9 / Style: 8
The Trees by Percival Everett: Three stars, crime and satire, 309 pages. I didn’t reread the synopsis before I started reading and felt behind the ball for the first 15% of the story. From there, I enjoyed the pace of the story, but it felt like it ended right as (I thought) it was truly getting started. I always felt like I was one step behind the author on his plot, but Everett’s almost irreverent tone made for an interesting read. One line summary: Strange, racially-motivated murders take place in Money, Mississippi, where Emmett Till was killed.
PLES: 30/40. Plot: 7 / Learning: 8 / Enjoyment: 7 / Style: 8
Camp Zero by Michelle Min Sterling: Three stars, science fiction thriller, 304 pages. I really wanted this to be good and exciting. It should tick all my boxes: women-centric, climate change plot, science fiction, Arctic setting. I thought it would be perfect. Sadly, the first third of the book I was so confused what was happening that I didn't find myself starting to enjoy the read until nearly halfway through — though I essentially read it in one sitting. One line summary: In 2050, a sex worker named Rose works at Camp Zero, where climate change has yet to devastate.
PLES: 27/40. Plot: 6 / Learning: 7 / Enjoyment: 7 / Style: 7
God Spare the Girls by Kelsey McKinney: Four stars, literary fiction, 320 pages. I know McKinney as the host of Normal Gossip (which is so fun to listen to) and while this book doesn’t read as fun as Normal Gossip, you can see the underpinnings of the plotting McKinney unrolls in each episode. I think this book works especially well if you have a sister — I felt this sister relationship so deep in my heart. One line summary: Two sisters, one a bride-to-be, reckon with the news that their father, a megachurch pastor, has had an affair.
PLES: 31/40. Plot: 8 / Learning: 8 / Enjoyment: 8 / Style: 7
The Last Animal by Ramona Ausubel: Three stars, literary and science fiction, 278 pages. In both Camp Zero and this, the heavy handedness of gender politics almost outweighs what work the characters are doing to work on fighting back against climate change. Surprisingly, this book is mostly dialogue, and the book turns into a meditation on motherhood about 40% in, which I didn’t expect and ultimately did not want to read. One line summary: A widow and her two teenage daughters get involved with a science experiment to “de-extinct” the wooly mammoth.
PLES: 29/40. Plot: 7 / Learning: 8 / Enjoyment: 7 / Style: 7
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson: Four stars, fiction, adventure, 311 pages. How did I never realize that Treasure Planet is a (fairly) faithful adaptation of Stevenson's novel, just in space? I enjoyed this a lot, and it was so fun to see how this book has so heavily influenced pop culture. Treasure maps with Xs on them for where the treasure is buried? Yep. One legged seamen? Yep. Pirates having parrots? Yep. "Shiver me timbers"? Yep, that too. One line summary: Jim Hawkins, a young man, is taken on a sea-faring adventure to find Captain Flint’s treasure.
PLES: 32/40. Plot: 8 / Learning: 7 / Enjoyment: 9 / Style: 8
Ascension by Nicholas Binge: Three stars, science fiction, 352 pages. For fans of Blake Crouch or propulsive science fiction. I enjoyed this and thought it was a fun execution of an idea that honestly isn’t totally original, but original enough. Smart to have it told through letters, so things can be left out, but I always get caught up in the “does anyone actually journal like this?” thoughts. One line summary: A strange mountain appears in the middle of the Pacific, and a team of scientists is sent to discover it’s supernatural secrets.
PLES: 29/40. Plot: 7 / Learning: 7 / Enjoyment: 8 / Style: 7
Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros: Four stars, romance and fantasy, 662 pages. Did I stay up until 2 a.m. to finish this? Yes. Do I think it's great literature that made me think critically? No. Not everything you read has to be eligible for a Pulitzer. Sometimes you can just read for fun, and that’s definitely what this felt like. And even though this is not my highest PLES scorer this month, it was my most enjoyable read. One line summary: Violet Sorrengail is thrown into Basgiath War College, where she must learn how to become a warrior and a dragon rider, or die trying.
PLES: 34/40. Plot: 9 / Learning: 7 / Enjoyment: 10 / Style: 8
Fourth Wing aka Am I Reading This For the Dragons or the Romance? The World May Never Know
King of Battle and Blood by Scarlett St. Clair: Three stars, romance and fantasy, 368 pages. A Doritos book. I saw someone comment “you know that saying about even when pizza is bad, it’s still good?” — I can super agree with that for this book. Reading this felt like I was 15 reading fanfiction on AO3 again. One line summary: Princess Isolde is taken as wife to Adrian, a vampire and the Blood King of Revekka.
PLES: 27/40. Plot: 6 / Learning: 6 / Enjoyment: 8 / Style: 7
Queen of Myth and Monsters by Scarlett St. Clair: Two stars, romance and fantasy, 432 pages. Yes, I then read the sequel to it. I have no impulse control with real Doritos, either. But it was like the bottom of the chip bag: crumbly, a little stale, and you wonder why you didn’t stop while you were ahead. One line summary: Queen Isolde fights the threat of witchcraft and treason in her and her husband’s kingdom.
PLES: 20/40. Plot: 5 / Learning: 5 / Enjoyment: 5/ Style: 5
Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas: Three stars, fantasy, 432 pages. I trust Maas as a writer enough to continue this series, because otherwise, I wouldn’t. This book very much suffered from telling instead of showing, with some of the most interesting elements of the plot happening off-page and being summarized in a sentence or two. I found out after I finished this that Maas wrote this when she was only sixteen years old which… makes much more sense. One line summary: Celaena, a world-class assassin before she was imprisoned, now has to fight to become The King’s Champion and eventually win her freedom.
PLES: 24/40. Plot: 6 / Learning: 6 / Enjoyment: 6 / Style: 6
Chouette by Claire Oshetsky: Four stars, surreal literary fiction, 256 pages. Tiny, our main character, is pregnant. She is convinced she's going to give birth to an Owl Baby. Her husband thinks she's being ridiculous – until she's right. I found myself really thinking through her examination of what parenting might look like with a special needs child through the metaphor of an animal child, but boy, is this one weird. One line summary: Tiny gives birth to Owl Baby, and navigates motherhood with a child of different needs.
PLES: 31/40. Plot: 8 / Learning: 7 / Enjoyment: 8 / Style: 8
Crown of Midnight by Sarah J Maas: Three stars, fantasy, 432 pages. This is a really high three-almost-four star, versus the lower three star of the first book. Maas is definitely picking up steam in this series, with more action, more twists, and just more in general, but this still seems to be missing that little *magic* that I’ve found throughout her other series. I’m excited to see how she continues to build. One line summary: Celaena, The King’s Champion, navigates love, friendship, betrayal, and conspiracy while trying to unravel a mystery about magic.
PLES: 30/40. Plot: 8 / Learning: 6 / Enjoyment: 8 / Style: 8
The Last Cold Place: A Field Season Studying Penguins in Antarctica by Naira de Gracia: Four stars, nonfiction science and memoir, 256 pages. Lab Girl meets Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube, with a sprinkle of Migrations. de Gracia is the daughter of journalists, but at her heart, she is a field worker — drawn to the data collection and minutiae of animal life, even if she doesn’t know anything about the animal upon arriving. One line summary: Over a five month period in the Antarctic, de Gracia takes part in data collection during penguin breeding and hatching season.
PLES: 31/40. Plot: 8 / Learning: 8 / Enjoyment: 8 / Style: 7
In Fact, I Could Put It Down (Or: What I Did Not Finish)
Saint Sebastian’s Abyss by Mark Haber: DNF at 20%. This book was too smart for me and I didn’t get it. What I actually understood was that it was intentionally written to be repetitive and pretentious. Maybe if you’re really into art this might work for you, but I just didn’t enjoy this enough to continue (and it’s short to begin with, too).
Lanny by Max Porter: DNF at 10%. This was just a little too weird for me.
Bookmarking to Read
I’ve been bad recently, picking up books I didn’t have on my to read list at all. But I still have added a couple to my library hold list and my overall TBR.
My Murder by Katie Williams: I saw this one in a book list a little while back and for some reason scrolled past it. But a coworker called it out recently and in rereading the synopsis, I am so grateful I gave it another glance because this sounds like a great Twilight Zone/Black Mirror-esq plot! Lou is a happily married mother of an adorable toddler. She's also the victim of a local serial killer. But she’s recently brought back to life and returned to her grieving family by a government project.
Currently Reading
Working slowly through a few things!
Sensational: The Hidden History of America's “Girl Stunt Reporters” by Kim Todd: I am listening to this and it feels like a podcast and a college lecture at the same time, and I’m enjoying it a lot. I have a background in journalism and remember very distinctly learning about Nellie Bly in my History of Journalism class, but she was lumped in with “yellow journalism” and “sensationalism.” In reading Todd’s account of all girl stunt reporters, we’re doing quite a disservice to what women journalists have contributed to society.
Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas: This is the third in the series and I’m making my way through it slowly. I’ve heard that all of Maas’ books live in the same universe, and I already know one of the connections. I’m hoping to complete this whole series (there are 8 books total) by the time the next book in the Crescent City series comes out in January.
Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone by Diana Gabaldon: The ninth book in the Outlander series. I am watching season 7 and remember reading books 7 and 8, but my memory is splotchy. I’m taking my time with this tome (888 pages… for comparison, War and Peace is 958 and I’m taking the whole year to read that) while I watch each episode (two books back, but it’s keeping me in the universe/mood).
Afterword
After reading so much fantasy this month, I’ve decided to do a month of trying to focus more on the classics. I have three classics on my July-hopefuls list, and you get to choose which one I start with!
Have a great month of reading, and stay cool! (I’ll be trying my best, but it’s 107F this weekend here in Sacramento, yikes.)
This substack is one of my favorite propulsive non-fictions.