Books Read in 2021: Three-Star Non-Fiction and Mystery

Three-Star Non-Fiction

Lean Out: A Meditation on the Madness of Modern Life by Tara Henley: synopsis from Goodreads: INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER

"Beautifully written, brimming with insight and reassurance--I'm so grateful for this book." -Olivia Sudjic, author of Exposure
"Provocative and convincing." -- Winnipeg Free Press
A deeply personal and informed reflection on the modern world--and why so many feel disillusioned by it.
In 2016, journalist Tara Henley was at the top of her game working in Canadian media. She had traveled the world, from Soweto to Bangkok and Borneo to Brooklyn, interviewing authors and community leaders, politicians and Hollywood celebrities. But when she started getting chest pains at her desk in the newsroom, none of that seemed to matter.
The health crisis--not cardiac, it turned out, but anxiety--forced her to step off the media treadmill and examine her life and the stressful twenty-first century world around her. Henley was not alone; North America was facing an epidemic of lifestyle-related health problems. And yet, the culture was continually celebrating the elite few who thrived in the always-on work world, those who perpetually leaned in. Henley realized that if we wanted innovative solutions to the wave of burnout and stress-related illness, it was time to talk to those who had leaned out.
Part memoir, part travelogue, and part investigation, Lean Out

 tracks Henley's journey from the heart of the connected city to the fringe communities that surround it. From early retirement enthusiasts in urban British Columbia to moneyless men in rural Ireland, Henley uncovers a parallel track in which everyday citizens are quietly dropping out of the mainstream and reclaiming their lives from overwork. Underlying these disparate movements is a rejection of consumerism, a growing appetite for social contribution, and a quest for meaningful connection in this era of extreme isolation and loneliness.

As she connects the dots between anxiety and overwork, Henley confronts the biggest issues of our time.

I certainly understand the impulse behind writing this book, but I didn't have high hopes that Henley would be able to offer any really groundbreaking solutions for me, and I was not wrong. It's not a bad book, but it's quite self-indulgent (I know, I know, writing by nature is self-indulgent, you know what I mean, right?). She details the journalism career that burned her out in quite a name-droppy self-promoting fashion - fair enough. She absolutely had some hardcore health problems - if she was American this probably would have been quite a different book, since how do you 'lean out' when you're facing crippling medical bills? She interviews a lot of people who live off the grid or out of the mainstream, and she does a lot of cooking from scratch and taking long walks, but this isn't any kind of bit paradigm shift - I found it neither "provocative" nor "convincing". I feel like I sound bitchier than I mean to - I am all for leaning out, and I'll give anyone a shot who wants to explore ways of doing it. She could have acknowledged her privilege a little more - at one point she compares herself to a black man who spent years in prison (I think wrongfully convicted, but I could be wrong) and it's pretty cringe. She might "confront the biggest issues of our time", but they are way too big for this to have made much of a dent, admirable as the effort may be.

Three-Star Short Stories

Vampires Never Get Old: Tales With Fresh Bite edited by Zoraida Cordova and Natalie C. Parker: synopsis from Goodreads: Eleven fresh vampire stories from young adult fiction’s leading voices! In this delicious new collection, you’ll find stories about lurking vampires of social media, rebellious vampires hungry for more than just blood, eager vampires coming out―and going out for their first kill―and other bold, breathtaking, dangerous, dreamy, eerie, iconic, powerful creatures of the night. Welcome to the evolution of the vampire―and a revolution on the page.

Three and a half. Two or three stories were really good. Tessa Gratton's Seven Nights for Dying offered a slightly different perspective, a nice kind of yearning melancholy about the decision whether or not to become immortal, haunting rather than just gross. Samira Ahmed's A Guidebook for the Newly Sired Desi Vampire was excellent - it's nice to have a new cultural take on vampires with some humour (vampires apps!) Rebecca Roanhorse's The Boys from Blood River has a dusty, sun-faded western kind of patina. The others were kind of pedestrian. I love Natalie C. Parker's work, but I thought that the addendums to the story along with the questions at the end were kind of cheesy.

Three Strikes by Lucy Christopher, Kat Ellis and Rhian Ivory: synopsis from Goodreads: Three Strikes is a collection of three dark novellas from three star YA authors.The Darkness - Lucy Christopher Kasha has answered the advert for The Tribe. Now she sits writing alone in the darkness of the jungle. Is she the only one left? Then she spots a red light blinking at her from the darkness. Cat’s eyes? A camera? The Twins of Blackfin - Kat Ellis Every evening Bo visits her best friend Sky’s grave. One night she hears a girl’s voice. Following it leads her to a journal and a crypt. Matchgirl - Rhian Ivory A modern YA retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Match Girl. Busking, runaway Nia is mugged and left badly hurt in a tunnel. All she has is three matches, and she starts seeing pictures in the light... A story of grief, love and music.

I think I ended up reading this because I was searching for an author in the library ebooks and this came up. It was odd. Usually I don't love reading stories set in universes of books I haven't read, but in this case that was the one I really liked (The Twins of Blackfin by Kat Ellis). I love the magical realism-soaked setting of Blackfin and I'm not interested in reading the other books. The Darkness by Lucy Christopher piqued my interest, but it pretty much stayed where it started without surprise or character development. Matchgirl by Rhian Ivory is a take on - well, yeah. The setting is quaint and lovely, the description of music and friendship, and I was really into it, and then I really didn't understand what she was going for. The ending was abrupt and confusing, and the whole thing didn't really relate to the source material for me.

Three-Star Mystery

Angel Killer (Jessica Blackwood #1) by Andrew Mayne: synopsis from Goodreads: FBI agent Jessica Blackwood believes she's left her complicated life as a gifted magician behind her . . . until a killer with seemingly supernatural powers puts her talents to the ultimate test.A hacker who identifies himself only as "Warlock" brings down the FBI's website and posts a code in its place that leads to a Michigan cemetery, where a dead girl is discovered rising from the ground . . . as if she tried to crawl out of her own grave.Born into a dynasty of illusionists, Jessica Blackwood is destined to become its next star—until she turns her back on her troubled family to begin a new life in law enforcement. But FBI consultant Dr. Jeffrey Ailes's discovery of an old magic magazine will turn Jessica's world upside down. Faced with a crime that appears beyond explanation, Ailes has nothing to lose—and everything to gain—by taking a chance on an agent raised in a world devoted to achieving the seemingly impossible.The body in the cemetery is only the first in the Warlock's series of dark miracles. Thrust into the media spotlight, with time ticking away until the next crime, can Jessica confront her past to stop a depraved killer? If she can't, she may become his next victim. 

I thought this was by an author that I'd read before, but I think I was mistaken. The character's history with stage magic relating to the mystery was interesting, but the characters were flat and had no emotional depth to them at all. The ending was so abrupt that I kept flipping back and forth thinking I'd missed something.

The Wife and the Widow by Christian White: synopsis from Goodreads: Set against the backdrop of an eerie island town in the dead of winter, The Wife and The Widow is an unsettling thriller told from two perspectives: Kate, a widow whose grief is compounded by what she learns about her dead husband’s secret life; and Abby, an island local whose world is turned upside when she’s forced to confront the evidence of her husband’s guilt. But nothing on this island is quite as it seems, and only when these women come together can they discover the whole story about the men in their lives. Brilliant and beguiling, The Wife and The Widow takes you to a cliff edge and asks the question: how well do we really know the people we love?

 

The setting and the plotting were good here - it was just a little one-dimensional.

The Quiet Girl by S.F. Kosa: synopsis from Goodreads: Good girls keep quiet. Quiet girls won't stay silent forever.When Alex arrives in Provincetown to patch things up with his new wife, he finds an empty wine glass in the sink, her wedding ring on the desk, and a string of questions in her wake. The police believe that Alex's wife simply left, his marriage crumbling before it truly began. But what Alex finds in their empty cottage points him toward a different reality: His wife has always carried a secret. And now she's disappeared. In his hunt for the truth, Alex comes across Layla, a young woman with information to share, who may hold the key to everything his wife has kept hidden. A girl without a clear recollection of her own past. A strange, quiet girl whose memories may break them all.To find his wife, Alex must face what Layla has forgotten. And the consequences are anything but quiet.

Again, decent plotting and a fairly good twist. Characters could have used a little more depth. 

Scarred (a Henry Christie Mystery Book #28) by Nick Oldham: synopsis from Goodreads: Some wounds never heal . . .Henry Christie has never forgotten the day he was brutally assaulted as a young constable while chasing a teenage shoplifter down a Blackpool alley. Tommy Benemy went missing soon after his arrest, but although Henry promised Tommy's mother he'd keep an eye on the case, her son was never found.Now retired, Henry reluctantly agrees to join the Cold Case Unit as a civilian investigator, teaming up with the volatile DS Debbie Blackstone, who's carrying scars of her own. When an old case leads them to a serial rapist, and a gruesome scene takes Henry back to his old promise - and failure, the pair find themselves confronting their demons as they unearth a deadly criminal conspiracy spanning decades, and chilling secrets desperate individuals will go to any lengths to keep hidden.

I have a bad habit of overlooking the subtitle that tells you that a book is the first in a trilogy (why do I EVER read those before they're all out?) or part of a series. In this case I think I got an advanced reader's copy, so I might not have seen it. But it's a pretty good bet that if something is NUMBER TWENTY-EIGHT in a series that it may have lost a little of its freshness. It wasn't actual crap, but I won't be rushing to read numbers one through twenty-seven.

Survive the Night by Riley Sagar: synopsis from Goodreads: Charlie Jordan is being driven across the country by a serial killer. Maybe. Behind the wheel is Josh Baxter, a stranger Charlie met by the college ride share board, who also has a good reason for leaving university in the middle of term. On the road they share their stories, carefully avoiding the subject dominating the news - the Campus Killer, who's tied up and stabbed three students in the span of a year, has just struck again. Travelling the lengthy journey between university and their final destination, Charlie begins to notice discrepancies in Josh's story. As she begins to plan her escape from the man she is becoming certain is the killer, she starts to suspect that Josh knows exactly what she's thinking. Meaning that she could very well end up as his next victim.

This was actually pretty fun. Pretty dumb. Pretty cheesy. But fun. I find this author quite uneven in quality, but the good is good enough that I keep going back and the bad is fun to mock. This one drew the ire of several readers on Goodreads: "I am untethered and my rage knows no bounds!"; "yes, enter this bish charlie jordan. this girl literally thinks she's the main character, smh. she would literally get me killed in the first five minutes of any scary movie."; "So -- this was a shitshow full of mad people". Reading this was like watching a scary/funny B-movie with a comically melodramatic soundtrack. 

We Were Never Here by Andrea Bartz: synopsis from Goodreads: An annual backpacking trip has deadly consequences in a chilling new novel from the bestselling author of The Lost Night and The Herd. Emily is having the time of her life--she's in the mountains of Chile with her best friend, Kristen, on their annual reunion trip, and the women are feeling closer than ever. But on the last night of their trip, Emily enters their hotel suite to find blood and broken glass on the floor. Kristen says the cute backpacker she'd been flirting with attacked her, and she had no choice but to kill him in self-defense. Even more shocking: The scene is horrifyingly similar to last year's trip, when another backpacker wound up dead. Emily can't believe it's happened again--can lightning really strike twice? Back home in Wisconsin, Emily struggles to bury her trauma, diving head-first into a new relationship and throwing herself into work. But when Kristen shows up for a surprise visit, Emily is forced to to confront their violent past. The more Kristen tries to keep Emily close, the more Emily questions her friend's motives. As Emily feels the walls closing in on their coverups, she must reckon with the truth about her closest friend. Can she outrun the secrets she shares with Kristen, or will they destroy her relationship, her freedom--even her life?

If I had read the synopsis a little more carefully, I probably wouldn't have read this. For what it was, it was done fairly well. It's really hard to write the "person with a traumatic secret trying to act normal but constantly bursting into tears/ dashing from the room/ freaking out in various other ways" schtick without it getting annoying. 

The Day She Died by Catriona McPherson: synopsis from Goodreads: That was the day I met Gus, the day I grew a family as if from magic beans, the day she died. That's the point, see? It was the very same day... Jessie Constable has learned the hard way to always keep herself safe. But meeting Gus King changes everything. Before she knows it, Jessie is sleeping at Gus's house, babysitting his kids, becoming a part of his family. And yet, she can't ignore the unsettling questions. Who does she keep seeing from the corner of her eye? Why are strange men threatening her? Most importantly, what really happened to Gus's wife?Creating a brilliant, foreboding mystery where nothing is as it seems, master storyteller Catriona McPherson weaves an ominous tale that will keep you guessing until the very end.

Three and a half. A little different and surprising. Kind of bonkers, but maintains its internal logic and has some really good characters. And it did, in fact, keep me guessing almost until the very end. 

The Dare by Lesley Kara: synopsis from Goodreads: She thought she had put all the questions to rest. But someone from her past wants answers. From the bestselling author of The Rumor and Who Did You Tell? comes The Dare, an electrifying novel of suspense. "I read The Dare in two big gulps--it's pacey, has great characters, and there's a flip worthy of Simone Biles."--Fiona Barton, New York Times bestselling author of The Widow At the time it was exciting. A game of dare, but one that had motive and justification. Children can be so judgmental, can't they? I can still hear her cry as she toppled forward, the dull thud of her body as it landed on the pavement.Lizzie and Alice are the best of friends, as close as can be. Until the day when they're out playing by the train tracks and a childish spat triggers Lizzie's epilepsy. When she comes to, she finds an unimaginable horror: Alice has been killed. Lizzie is devastated, and as she tries to cope with her grief, she is shocked to find herself alienated from Alice's friends and relatives, who are convinced Lizzie and "the dare" somehow had a role in her friend's death.I knew that whatever she wanted me to do, I'd do it. Like that first, dreadful dare. Years later, Lizzie has tried to move on. She's engaged to a wonderful man and is starting a new life in London. But someone from her past isn't willing to forgive and forget. And they'll do anything to pry answers from her. Even if Lizzie doesn't know them herself. 

I'm running out of ways to say "adequately plotted but sub-par writing and characterization". There was a good story in here, but it was very much "this happened then this happened then this happened, I was scared/suspicious/shocked." All of these would be good reads for anyone that hasn't read hundreds of books in the same genre. It's not them, it's me.

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie: synopsis from Goodreads: First, there were ten—a curious assortment of strangers summoned as weekend guests to a little private island off the coast of Devon. Their host, an eccentric millionaire unknown to all of them, is nowhere to be found. All that the guests have in common is a wicked past they're unwilling to reveal—and a secret that will seal their fate. For each has been marked for murder. A famous nursery rhyme is framed and hung in every room of the mansion:

"Ten little boys went out to dine; One choked his little self and then there were nine. Nine little boys sat up very late; One overslept himself and then there were eight. Eight little boys traveling in Devon; One said he'd stay there then there were seven. Seven little boys chopping up sticks; One chopped himself in half and then there were six. Six little boys playing with a hive; A bumblebee stung one and then there were five. Five little boys going in for law; One got in Chancery and then there were four. Four little boys going out to sea; A red herring swallowed one and then there were three. Three little boys walking in the zoo; A big bear hugged one and then there were two. Two little boys sitting in the sun; One got frizzled up and then there was one. One little boy left all alone; He went out and hanged himself and then there were none."

When they realize that murders are occurring as described in the rhyme, terror mounts. One by one they fall prey. Before the weekend is out, there will be none. Who has choreographed this dastardly scheme? And who will be left to tell the tale? Only the dead are above suspicion. 

I read this to fill a book bingo square, and because of a funny thing that happened a few years ago with Eve. She came home and said she had to pick a mystery to read in English and described the book and said it was by "Agatha Someone" and then asked why I was laughing. After she read it she said the ending was pretty bleak and I said "well at least the last two characters get married". She said "what do you mean, literally everyone died?" We looked it up and it turned out that I had read the play, for which Agatha Christie changed the ending to be a little less desolate because it was being performed during World War II and things were depressing enough. 

I liked it when I first read it - the 'locked room' aspect of it appealed to me - but the writing style is a little too dated for my taste at this point for it to be a gripping read and not just an exercise in nostalgia.

Books Read in 2021: The Turkeys

153 books this year - the first year I was able to stop worrying about my book tally and I read more than any year since 2014. The January 2021 lockdown had a lot to do with that, and I had a good fall for sitting outside in my swinging chair reading. Interestingly, when I look quickly at the Goodreads breakdown, the proportion of five-star, four-star and three-star and fewer reads is roughly the same. I.... have no idea what that means. I haven't gotten any better at not finishing books (it's fine, I read really fast), and I guess I haven't gotten any better at choosing books either. Although how can you know if you're going to like a book before you read it? Okay never mind, I thought I was onto something but I was wrong. 

One-Star Reads

The Woods Are Always Watching by Stephanie Perkins: synopsis from Goodreads: A companion to There's Someone Inside Your House. Bears aren't the only predators in these woods.Best friends Neena and Josie spent high school as outsiders, but at least they had each other. Now, with college and a two-thousand-mile separation looming on the horizon, they have one last chance to be together—a three-day hike deep into the woods of the Pisgah National Forest.Simmering tensions lead to a detour off the trail and straight into a waking nightmare; and then into something far worse. Something that will test them in horrifying ways.

Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot. Okay, admittedly I thought I had given four stars to the previous book I read by this author, and I now see that I gave it three stars, but it was a perfectly serviceable teen slasher thing with a fairly interesting main character and I had hopes for this that were not high, exactly, but WHAT THE FUCK. 

First of all, just to be all nit-picky which I would not be if this had not been so direly god-awful, in one of the opening scenes the girls put on their hiking backpacks and do a topple-over-can-barely-move a la Cheryl Strayed in Wild thing. Okay, fine. But THEN they fuck around looking at the map and the trailhead bulletin board and shit - really? You can barely stand up with the weight on your back and you're going to dick around rather than getting right down to the hike? 

This is just the very beginning of the things in this book that strain the bonds of credulity far beyond what I can bear - and I am a champion suspender of disbelief, I can bear a LOT. The characters are shallowly drawn and the close friendship is told but not shown - sure, hiking and camping puts a strain on the strongest of friendships (and marriages), but this is not that. Add to that the fact that we go from a sort-of-scary hiking and camping in the dark deal to a messy feminist screed (again, all for it if it's done right, not jammed into the narrative so awkwardly that you can see all the edges) and from a realistic (putting it kindly) narrative to some sudden psychic intuition that's offered in place of actual exposition. And a few more physical impossibilities. Plus, one of the girls takes a dump in the woods and then gets back in the tent and hears a noise and when her friend goes to say something she PUTS HER HAND OVER THE FRIEND'S MOUTH. Without having washed her hand. Ew. 

Anyway. It sucked. One star, do not recommend.

If You Go Down to the Woods by Seth C. Adams: synopsis from Goodreads: We were so young when it all happened--just 13-year-olds making the most of the long, hot, lazy days of summer, thinking we had the world at our feet. That was us--me, Fat Bobby, Jim, and Tara--the four members of the Outsiders’ Club. The day we found a burnt-out car in the woods was the day everything changed. Cold, hard cash in the front seat and a body in the trunk. It started as a mystery we were desperate to solve. Then the Collector arrived. He knew we had found his secret, and suddenly, our summer of innocence turned into the stuff of nightmares.

This was recommended for fans of Stephen King, and obviously the plot draws the attention that way. The actual book reads like a writer thought "hmm, I'm going to write a Stephen King-esque book about young people who have a dangerous adventure", and then does so without any of Stephen King's ability to write realistically about young people and also without any ability to write like you're not a douchebro who misses being able to say the r-word and call people fat pussies.

The main character rescues an overweight boy from bullies and becomes 'friends' with him - direct quote: "his constant uncertainty, his insistence on the negative, the downbeat, the altogether pussy-ness of his whole demeanor, solidified for me. Though I tried to keep my thoughts and words kind, his name for me as Fat Bobby, which also meant Weak Bobby, Sissy Bobby, Yes I’m a Big Fat Wuss Come Kick My Ass Bobby, became fixed in my mind." Yes, this is after they've become friends. Joey also hopes that Bobby "doesn't build some sort of shrine to me in a closet at home. That would be kind of queer." Oh sorry, did I forget to mention that homophobic slurs are also liberally employed? And if you're worried that the n-word is missing, worry not! In fact, the phrase "I threw the words back at him, our faces close enough to kiss if I suddenly chose to go gay and wanted some hot black action" occurs - offensive against two oppressed groups at once! Let's not even get into how Joey talks about his love interest - no, wait, let's. "Then Fat Bobby was soaking all three of us, and when he got to Tara he aimed at her chest instead of her face. Pretty soon breasts tipped with hard nipples were poking out against her blouse like missiles."

I honestly don't know what the hell the author, the editor AND the publisher were thinking. It's not like this was published thirty years ago or more, either - it was published in 20 freaking 19! I kept reading out of some kind of horrified fascination, but it never got better. Quite a few reviews on Goodreads do mention being disgusted with the language, but a disappointing number of people seem to have been won over by the superficial resemblances to The Body (the King novella made into the movie Stand By Me). The author has a Twitter account, and I considered engaging him, but he only has 43 followers and I'm trying to get away from Twitter fights, plus I'm a bit of a wimp. I still might, though, because I'm pissed off all over again typing this. It's not like it's a great book if you ignore the language fuckery - he tries to emulate the quaint, small-town 1960s setting of The Body but suddenly there's internet. I could go on, but I'm really ready to put this whole experience behind me.

 Two-Star Reads

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Otessa Moshfegh: synopsis from Goodreads: From one of our boldest, most celebrated new literary voices, a novel about a young woman’s efforts to duck the ills of the world by embarking on an extended hibernation with the help of one of the worst psychiatrists in the annals of literature and the battery of medicines she prescribes.

Our narrator should be happy, shouldn’t she? She’s young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate, works an easy job at a hip art gallery, lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like the rest of her needs, by her inheritance. But there is a dark and vacuous hole in her heart, and it isn’t just the loss of her parents, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her best friend, Reva. It’s the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong?

My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a powerful answer to that question. Through the story of a year spent under the influence of a truly mad combination of drugs designed to heal our heroine from her alienation from this world, Moshfegh shows us how reasonable, even necessary, alienation can be. Both tender and blackly funny, merciless and compassionate, it is a showcase for the gifts of one of our major writers working at the height of her powers.

It's entirely possible that I'm just missing the point here, but I did not find this enjoyable or enlightening or funny or any other things it was purported to be. I'm no stranger to the desire to go to sleep for a few months and wake up with things magically improved, so I thought I might identify on that level. I was wrong. I have no objection to fiction about unpleasant things - vomit, excrement, body hair, bodily functions, graphic sex - if they serve some kind of purpose. This reminded me very much of How Should a Person Be by Sheila Heti, which I also hated - they both made me feel like an MFA student was trying their best to be shocking and alternative. The main character has a friend she treats like crap and seems to hate, a boyfriend who treats her like crap and seems to hate her, she mentions many times that "I'm still blond and thin and pretty", (many times - I started noting it down every time it was referenced, and it was...many) and she buys two coffees every day from some Egyptians and takes a lot of pills. The pill-bestowing psychiatrist isn't funny enough to be a caricature. I felt glimmers of actual sadness in the parts about the narrator's troubled relationship with her parents. That's it. At least it wasn't too long. Maybe it was trying to satirize some of the elements, but in my opinion if satirizing something results in a work that is indistinguishable from the thing being satirized, you've made a wrong turn somewhere.

Not a good year for books with "Woods" in the title, then. Onward!

Broken Brain Furnished in Early January

 Turns out that when you're already predisposed to January depression, a new Covid wave and your kids going back to school five hours away at the same time really enhances the experience. Of course, everyone whose kids aren't leaving home and are stuck doing online learning, or going into Covid-ridden schools or whatever is also not having the best of times, in addition to literally everyone else except the deluxe fuckwagon anti-vaxxers and the like. I also have my customary month-long January headache (why? why now? WHO CAN FUCKING SAY?) 

Eve is actually at home an extra week doing online university, but I don't have to help with that and Matt is traveling this week (why? why now? who can fucking say? He's arranged it so he's only flying on planes where everyone has to be vaccinated, apparently it's necessary but definitely not ideal) so the company will be nice. 

Writing my last blog post, I was suddenly struck anew by the extreme weirdness of blogging. There is diversity, of course, but basically, we write about out lives online and somehow people we don't otherwise know end up reading it. It is splendid, but it is weird.

I'm thinking about death a lot right now, which I don't think is all depression-related. The holidays is chiefly about family for us, which of course draws the mind to the family members we've lost, and the new year is a sort of transition point, which always makes me think about dying too. Then there's my Christmas Day nap. The first Christmas Day nap was last year. We opened presents, went to my parents' place for breakfast, came home and I went upstairs and showered and put on clean pajamas. I didn't have great hopes for the nap - I haven't been sleeping well for a couple of years, and usually if I do nap I'm so overtired that the twitchy legs thing goes into overdrive. 

But it was perfect. It was superlative. It was the best nap I've ever had. I was asleep enough that it felt restful, but still aware that I was having a great sleep. All the dreams were lovely. The temperature was ideal. The sheets were so soft and cozy. Every position I rolled into was perfectly comfortable. 

When I got up, the house smelled like turkey, and I spent a lovely evening with my family. I kept thinking that it would be nice if that was what death was like. Peaceful, serene, no sense of urgency, but a faint sense that when we wake, wonderful things await. 

A few nights ago, I was reading a David Sedaris book in bed, and Eve came in with me to read Brave New World. She had thought initially that it might be a fun read - she enjoys science fiction and the synopsis sounded interesting. I had a faint memory of reading it at about her age and did not have great hopes for her reading experience (although I did really like Eyeless in Gaza), but I didn't say anything. Unfortunately, I was right. 

Don't be fooled by the smile, she hadn't started reading yet

The David Sedaris book started with a few fictional pieces, and I liked the first one but after that I was feeling dismayed at how unkind and unfunny the next ones seemed. Fortunately, the book got back to essays about his family, which are what I hugely enjoy. I was erupting in explosive laughter at frequent intervals, and then apologizing to Eve, who finally said miserably "I'm reading the summary. Of what I already read, because I don't know what the hell is going on". I said all I remembered was genetic modification and women being called "pneumatic" a lot, as if resembling a tire was a huge compliment, and she said "yes - plus it's apparently cool for kids to have sex". I just looked at Goodreads and I gave it four stars, so I guess I'll have to read it again to remember why. 

Yesterday Eve and I went to Staples to get her a couple of new notebooks for subjects that are new this term, then went to Indigo basically to look around and for Eve to be funny. She picked up one book and said "ooh, the cover is so pretty", then opened it and said "ooh, but it's Instagram poetry". She waved at the biography section and said "I don't want to read about your life, buddy", but then we had to buy a book from there for her Indigenous studies course. We did manage not to buy any more blankets, even though they were on sale so it was a near thing. 

This week I can only work my library shift - my office shifts are cancelled because school is online -- so I'm going to get the book review posts organized and keep Eve well fed while she does coursework. And take a fuckton of Advil, probably. Wishing everybody a great week. 

Just Pretend It's Christmas, Whatever, Time's Lost All Meaning

 I meant to blog again before Christmas. I enjoyed reading everyone's Christmas posts. It was good that I got so much of the house cleaned and did so much Christmas stuff early this year, because the Omicron wave started rolling in and my sister and her family couldn't come any more and the school where I work had multiple Covid outbreaks and I hit a pretty bad slump and stopped doing anything. When I tried to restart Christmas cards I couldn't find the list of who I'd already done, so I just didn't do any more - this felt totally wrong but I couldn't face having to try to figure out where to start again. 

It was better once the kids got home and with the new rules in place we could still be with my mom and dad for Christmas. Eve would come downstairs and squish herself in beside me on the couch and Lucy would jump on us and it was the best thing ever. 

I always put the same Christmas decorations on the shelf above the television, and Matt winds a string of lights around them. Every year I think maybe I should change things up a little, but this year we were watching a movie and Eve said that was the exact scene she'd had in her head when she was at university and thought about coming home for Christmas, so henceforth this display will be identical to the millimetre. 

We FaceTimed with my sister and her bunch a couple of times and it was nice (once they were drinking and watching Office Christmas Party, which we were supposed to do here, dammit, but I didn't sulk for too long). The kids were still up for the annual in-front-of-the-tree photo shoot, which always makes me feel indescribably fortunate. The props were martini glasses, which Matt insisted on garnishing properly, but rest assured we did not let Lucy drink actual alcohol - it was just water.

Posing with the ornaments from their respective universities

This will be next year's Christmas card, obviously

I got my Covid booster the 21st so I was pretty tired and achy for Christmas. Everything was nice but just felt slightly off. Christmas morning was still perfect - I had fun with the kids' gifts and they're always fun and funny opening everything. Angus had mentioned something called dorm flags, which I had never heard of, and when I looked them up a lot of them were incredibly offensive. I got a couple of funny ones and then this one which I couldn't resist - the kids used to play Club Penguin unceasingly when they were little. I didn't know if he would find it as hilarious as I did, but he said it's the first one he's going to hang up. 

Angus got me a really pretty bottle of tequila!

These were my mom's favourite gift:

Matt did the turkey, because the last couple of years I have basically used up all my bodily resources by Christmas Eve, and I stumble through Christmas morning and breakfast with my parents and then I have a heavenly Christmas nap. 

That fleece that Eve is wearing in that picture? She wears it constantly. I actually got it from a clothing exchange a few years ago at Zarah's place (HI ZARAH). I would have thought four or five years tops. Then this picture came up in my Facebook memories:

EIGHT YEARS AGO. EIGHT. And it wasn't new when I got it! And it's still her favourite shirt and she gets compliments on it. 

I got some time with the people I love. I have both my kids under my roof. I had a good fall. It sucks that things are bad again, but they're not AS bad, and things were better before that. We might just all have to remind each other of that a few times.

I am organizing my book review posts for the next few days while rewatching The Golden Girls. Eve is reading Brave New World for next term. One of us is definitely having a better time. 

I mean Happy New Year

In the Bleak(ish) Mid-Holiday-Season

 Not that I think anyone is going to bake the cookies from the recipe I linked to in the last post (oh crap, HI HELEN, hope you see this in time) but just in case anyone is, here's a PSA regarding something I remembered halfway through baking a couple of nights ago: choose a small-ish cookie cutter for this cookie, and roll out the dough quite thinly. I neglected to do either of these things the first time I made them, and the resulting first few cookies were terrifying - no one wants a hamburger-sized cookie coming at your face.

I was baking last night and trying to get the main floor clean enough to host book club today and my foot hurt and my arm hurt and my joints hurt and my back hurt and I had this wave of dispiritedness and thought that I can't keep doing this, or shouldn't, it's stupid to keep breaking myself. The salted toffee pretzel bark is probably the biggest hit of anything I make and it's the easiest thing. I should just make eight pans of bark next year and call it done. 

I didn't have the best sleep, but this morning I got up and took some Advil and moved slowly, and Angus got home about a half hour before book club people were due to show up. We weren't sure when he could get here because he found a place to get a free Covid test to come into Canada, but they said results would take two to five days, and he needed them within three to get across. Matt was annoyed - he quoted his Chinese colleague who once said "why you use Skype free version - free equals shitty!" I appreciated that Angus was trying to save us money but I kind of wished he'd just thrown money at the problem. Things improved when we realized he could just drive to the house of a friend who lives right across the border in Canton NY and hang there waiting for his results - they're really nice people who like having him. Then he did get his results last night and drove him this morning, so now he looks like a frugal genius.

So that was happy-making, and then we had book club and it was really nice - I kept panicking the last few days that I had forgotten to read the book, but there was no book, it was just a get-together. We exchanged Christmas cards with tiny things in them and I got two new tree ornaments that I love, and it felt kind of normal, and was very nice. 

Hugs and empathy to anyone who is running themselves into the ground trying to give their family a magazine-worthy Christmas. Anyone who isn't, teach us all your wise ways. 

Candles in the Window, Carols at the - what the heck IS a Spinet

 I feel like I'm doing that thing where I do NaBloPoMo and feel like I could blog every day forever and then it's kind of a relief not to have to blog one day and then it's almost Christmas and hello not blogging anymore. 

So remember the package I got that wasn't for me, that I taped back up to take to the proper house? Today I just went "hey, there's an unopened package on the table, what's that?" Sorry Emily, it's coming, I promise. 

I am feeling the seemingly-inevitable dread and pressure about getting everything done for Christmas and then getting mad at myself for feeling dread and pressure because I am a strong independent woman who rejects the patriarchal capitalist social structures that dictate that women are responsible for producing a Hallmark-worthy Christmas. I had to think for quite a long time before I remembered my motto for the last few years at this time of year: "Do what you can, and let the rest go." It's fifty percent bullshit - I do actually want to give my family a perfect Christmas. I just don't want to be a sobbing, hunched-over, crippled mess at the end of it all. It's a balancing act.

I did things a little out of my regular order. I had all the kids' Christmas presents in the living room (front of the house where we don't spend much time) because the kids aren't home so I didn't have to hide them downstairs in the storage room. Usually I'd put them down there then bring them up to wrap them, then bring them back down until Christmas Eve. This year I decided to wrap them and then bring them down, saving myself a few trips. As I'm reading this I'm realizing it is not remotely revolutionary, and I'm a little sorry I made you read about it. 

I have also written and mailed an entire box of Christmas cards, and it is December 8, a few days ahead of when I usually manage to start. I still have many left, and my kitchen table is still strewn with cards and photos and gift labels and stamps. I can't seem to go down my list of addresses in an orderly fashion when writing Christmas cards - I have to scroll up and down seeing who I FEEL should come next. I also found a stash of wallet-sized photos from past years that were left over so I've been sticking cards of adorable little Angus and Eve in some cards just for the hell of it. 

Today I'm baking my first Christmas cookies. I was trying to remember what the favourites were from the past few years, and one kind I couldn't find the recipe for - all I could remember was that there was cream in the batter and they were really good and a little different from everything else I made. I tried googling and going through my recipe files and no luck. Then I remembered emailing the recipe to Collette (HI COLLETTE) and did a search, hoping that it happened after I accidentally deleted all my emails. And I found it! Here it is in case anyone needs a new cookie in the rotation - they're really good. 

While I'm doing all the Christmas shit, I also try every time I'm in a room or space to grab something that shouldn't be there and either put it where it belongs or get rid of it. You guys, I have a LOT of shit in this house that isn't where it should be. I can't tell if I'm happy or annoyed that my blinders to that are still off. 

Feel free to drop a favourite Christmas recipe or tell me I'm a chump for doing Christmas cards  - the happy cheery messages do seem a little off-key this year. Plus I'm pretty sure I wrote something about syphilis in one of them. Maybe I should have skipped it. 

*a spinet is a an 'early harpsichord having a single keyboard and only one string for each note'. Huh. I thought it was a record player. I also thought it was spinnet.

Today I'm Blogging Because I WANT To, Not Because I HAVE To

 I was a little worried (okay, I was very worried) yesterday that going away and visiting Eve and Zarah, while absolutely lovely, had completely removed my previous energy and desire for cleaning and purging and Christmas decorating. Happily, today I feel quite a bit better. I also remembered something that I almost never remember when I'm home for the day, which is that I should not get up and shower right away, I should get up and wash my face and put on grubby clothes and do some stuff around the house I want to do and then walk Lucy and THEN shower. I was almost as happy that I REMEMBERED this order of operations as I was actually carrying it out.

I realized something last week as I was lying in bed in the morning thinking I should get up and do yoga before showering. I'm still thinking of anything that could be deemed exercise as a chore, even if it's something I like to do. Realizing this doesn't automatically solve the problem, but it's maybe a start? Today while I was walking with Lucy I didn't try to walk as fast as possible to burn the max number of calories. I let her stop and sniff stuff if she wanted to. I tried to appreciate the privilege of walking outside, on my own two (nearly functional) feet, seeing the trees against the sky. 

Also trying not to laugh at Lucy's utter dismay at this whimsical character

Not here for your Christmas bullshit

She did NOT appreciate him at all.

When I got home from my trip there was a small stack of packages on the table, which I briskly ripped open. Most stuff was expected, but with this I thought "oh great, I definitely wanted it but I didn't think I'd actually ordered it yet"

Then I took a beat and actually looked at the address on the envelope that I had just ripped open so gleefully, and it was not mine. So now I have a small dilemma. Do I tape the package up messily and deliver it, leaving the person to wonder what the hell happened? Or do I risk an awkward encounter to explain myself? Not to mention the fact that just now I had three very sticky labels to get off a new glass jar. Don't worry, the actual item remains unmolested. Still. It's a good thing I'm trying to be a better person.