Lost in Lualand

I read 13 books in August! Here is what I thought about them, in order of when I read them!

Sorcery and Small Magics by Maiga Doocy

Cute! I liked the main characters and their dynamic, and the final twist with the curse lifting was really well-done. Also kind of relieved they didn’t get together at the end so the relationship can develop more in the next book.

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

Pretty funny! Basically boils down to “ignore the demons in your head and just write stuff down” lol. My friends found the Christianity offputting, but I actually didn’t mind it. It felt like she was clearly framing her religion as something important to her and her life, but not something she was pushing on the reader. I liked the part where she says she likes her characters to be the same type of mentally ill she is, it felt very modern for a book written thirty-plus years ago.

Run With the Wind by Shion Miura

I watched the anime while it was airing so I was excited to read the book! I did really enjoy it, but I was surprised by how much they emphasized Kakeru’s crush on Hana-chan. Also surprised that the narration consistently referred to Haiji as Kiyose while all the characters called him Haiji. I feel like the book was a lot clearer thematically, and helped me understand the author’s perspective on running.

Paul Auster's The New York Trilogy: City of Glass, Ghosts, The Locked Room by Paul Auster, Paul Karasik, David Mazzuchelli, Lorenzo Matotti

I completely did not get the middle story at all and barely got the other two stories, but Mazzuchelli is still one of the best to ever do it. City of Glass is just so beautifully drawn.

If You Still Recognise Me by Cynthia So

Very blindsided by the fandom angle that was not at all mentioned in the cover copy and I wish had been warned for adequately. The fandom aspect felt very stilted, none of the conversations read like they were happening between real people who exist or real people active in a fandom. The fictional comic they were into sounded kind of like a version of Runaways, but was not in conversation with any other fandom and the three named fans were not in conversation with any other fans or fandoms either. I was half-expecting the online crush to turn out to be the girl from the main character’s past, but they didn’t tie that together at all. Also the cover art was weird— you’d think the viewpoint character would be the one in the front looking at the reader, but she’s actually the one standing in the background? Otherwise it was fine enough for a YA debut I guess.

Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty

One of the important characters in this book is named Masha so I read it to experience a book with a major character that shared my name. I liked it, mostly! Funny, fun characters, interesting Themes. The character named Masha was absolutely deranged though.

Will Write for Food: The Complete Guide to Writing Cookbooks, Blogs, Memoir, Recipes, and More by Dianne Jacob

I did want to learn more about food writing, so I picked this up! Learned about some authors I had not previously heard of, learned about how people without food backgrounds got into food writing, and learned that, like all other types of journalism, it’s very hard to make money writing about food. Pretty interesting, if not very relevant to me as someone who cooks Occasionally and mostly lives off frozen food, instant noodles and the generosity of my friends and family.

The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver

THIS RULED. This book consists of the (fictional) collected diaries of a half-Mexican half-American closeted gay man who was besties with Frida Kahlo and briefly a popular novelist before the anti-communist push after WWII basically drove him back out of the country, collected by his loyal secretary. Really interesting and fun narrative voice, occasionally very sad story.

Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint, Vol. 1 by singNsong, UMI

I intended to check out the light novel but got this first instead. It was: fine. Serviceable webtoon to print adaptation. I did read the first volume of the light novel later, but I read this first and it was fine, but not the ideal way to experience this story I think.

Black Water Sister by Zen Cho

Read this on the train to and from Anime NYC for a few days because I realized I was subscribed to the author on Dreamwidth! I really enjoyed it. Very well-constructed plot, evocative sense of place, really interesting, complex characters. I also really liked how religion was explored in here, with the very real local gods but also Christianity and how they connected. Great time.

Endling by Maria Reva

I think I liked it overall? I don’t know how well the meta aspect of it worked (the yurt thing), though I can understand why it’s important to the author. Brought me back to February 2022. I hope the author’s grandfather is okay at least. Kind of annoyed the whole book ended on Paul, though, as he was the least interesting character.

The Friend Zone Experiment by Zen Cho

Also fun! I love the girlboss lead and her gentle piano-playing love interest, did not like how much real estate girlboss’s evil ex took up on the page. I thought the second-chance romance was well-developed and the reasons for them not getting together immediately made sense. Also liked the Best Friend Character and the final endgame twist that I was hoping would happen did happen, thankfully.

That’s everything I read in August! I will read more books in September and in fact I have already read some.