Everything I read in January

Including a book I will never forget (and something about baby harmonicas that I've already forgotten).

I recently unlocked a new bedtime phase: instead of reading aloud to my daughter, or engaging in a long tuck-in routine, we now just read our books next to each other in her bed. I always threaten that I’ll only spend 10 minutes in bed with her, and end up reading my book for an hour. We both win, even though sometimes she asks me what’s happening in my book and I have to find a creative way to say, for example, “someone just did a line of coke.” Anyway, here’s what I read in January, some of it in my daughter’s twin sized bed under the watchful gaze of seventeen Squishmallows:

Set Piece by Lana Schwartz (out May 6)

I think “Set Piece” — another 831 Stories hit— might be added to my list of all-time favorite romances (also on the list: Every Summer After, Love and Other Words, Red White and Royal Blue, Seven Days in June).Every word of dialogue in this famous/normal person novella was perfect, the conflict felt realistic, and I may have squealed out loud at one point, I can’t remember. The only problem is that it doesn’t come out until May. In the meantime, I also really liked the 831 book that came out last week, Comedic Timing (I read it last year.) (Thank you to 831 Stories and Netgalley for this advanced copy!)

Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors

I stayed up until 4 am finishing this book. I was miserable the next day but have no regrets. I’m not sure what genre this book is — somewhere between weird literary sad girls and propulsive family drama — but wherever it is, I may have found my niche. I loved the last page so, so much. A few quotes I highlighted according to Goodreads (truly the only reason I still use Goodreads):

On a younger sister’s experience watching her beloved older sister and best friend become an adolescent: “For the first time, Nicky traveled to a place Lucky could not follow. It was scary and required Clearasil.”

About a Spice Girls concert, which feels similar to the Eras Tour discourse: “The concert was three hours of heaven, all of them scream-singing the words to every song along with thousands of other girls, lifted together on a tide of riotous, unapologetic joy, the feeling that to be a girl with other girls was not some weakness, as they had been told, but a power, the best and luckiest power on earth.”

I also highlighted the phrase “baby harmonicas” for some reason, I can’t remember why but I remember it made me laugh out loud. If you read it, please remind me what was so funny about baby harmonicas??

Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson

This was also excellent, even though I usually don’t love a dual timeline situation. The fact that terrible things kept happening to main character Ebby made me think a lot about conversations I’ve seen and had around Black stories — and, in a different but similar way, Jewish stories: why are people so drawn to the stories about our trauma, not our joy? I liked that the ending felt like a win for Ebby, but didn’t wrap things up so perfectly.

People are saying “Black Cake” by the same author was even better, so I’m adding that to my list. (Thanks to libro.fm for my copy!)

The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami (out March 4)

Oh my god, I will never stop thinking about this book. It takes place in the near future, in a world where you can be arrested for pre-crime thoughts, which the government has access to via all the tech we’ve signed away our privacy for, for the privilege of using. (The quick backstory as to how it got to this point feels SCARILY plausible; if you end up reading this I need to talk to someone about it.)

Our protagonist Sara starts using an implantable chip to help her sleep, but when the device senses thoughts of violence in her dreams, it lands her in what is essentially Dream Jail. I would compare this to The School for Good Mothers (without such a focus on motherhood) and because it takes place in a women’s prison-type setting, I couldn’t help but picture Orange Is the New Black. And it isn’t really like Station Eleven, but there are moments in The Dream Hotel that feel prescient and terrifying in the way Station Eleven turned out to be. There are casually chilling references to climate change (“It used to snow in Reno”) and a southern California wildfire plot point. I think I picked the worst — or maybe the best? — week to read this, as the horrific fires wiped out entire communities and tech CEOs publicly publicly entered their villain era. (And on top of all that, I had just binged Severance.)

It was prescient in a terrifying way and casually devastating. I loved it! What is wrong with me! (Thanks to Pantheon and Netgalley for my advance copy!)

Show Don’t Tell by Curtis Sittenfeld (out February 25)

Okay, back to the real world. There’s a story from Curtis Sittenfeld’s last story collection, “You Think It, I’ll Say It,” that I still think about because it’s so awkward and embarrassing — a suburban mom who is so sure she’s about have an affair with a dad at her kids’ school, acts on her instinct and it doesn’t go well — and this collection was full of similarly wonderful mundanely awkward situations. How is Curtis Sittenfeld so good at these?? I aspire. (Thanks to Random House/Netgalley for my advance copy!)