February Reading Recap

A quieter reading month.

I only read five this month although I made progress on Mother, Creature, Kin by Chelsea Steinauer-Scudderand I am on track to finish Enter, Ghost by Isabella Hammad today.

Dominion by Addie Citchen - this book starts off and you think, oh, I understand this environment and then it rips off the facade and you realize there are a lot of other things going on. This one is set in a church but because of the cover I had thought it was going to be in the past. It’s modern-day. A great read.

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy - I probably went into this one with expectations that were too high. I thought it was going to be more of a family saga when it ended up being more of a suspense read with more science than I had expected. I have had some interesting conversations about whether the ending was hopeful or hopeless. I tended to think it was kind of hopeless.

The Justice of Jesus by Joash P. Thomas - I read this to see if it would be a good fit for our church summer read, and the answer is no. I am a little bit baffled by books like this. I am sure this guy is very nice, but in 2017 he was still working for a Republican and writing speeches opposing immigration. Trump had already been elected at that point. That also means he had lived through the shootings of Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, Philando Castile, and the Mother Emanuel Nine and still felt comfortable with the rhetoric. I welcome people who change their minds but I am not always sure they are the people who should be writing books. I could see this being helpful to people who are newer to these ideas than he is but it would not be a good fit for my church.

Counterweights by Shannan Martin - Counterweights is a concept that Shannan is using to help people understand that when we are experiencing difficult things, we also have the opportunity to pay attention to the joyful and hopeful things that hopefully balance them out. This book is about the practice of finding those counterweights. They can be as serious and deep as nature and friendship and as ephemeral as Taylor Swift songs (I say that as someone who likes Taylor Swift). It is about not giving the bleakness the last word. Shannan appears to live a genuinely thoughtful life where she and her family prioritize community and looking out for others. I admire that work very much. I thought her “counterweight” idea worked better in some chapters than others, and I wondered a few times if I was missing on some context that might help me feel more invested in a particular story.

The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett - This is about PJ, a goodhearted drunk who ends up being the caregiver for his brother’s grandkids and the ill-advised road trip they take with his daughter (and a cat named Pancakes) for reasons that honestly I don’t have time to explain to you. It’s funny and sad. I really liked it! I liked all of the characters individually and the ways they came to know and really see one another. There were a few too many names to keep up with, but that’s a mild complaint. A thing that happens at the beginning is that PJ steals his ex-wife’s fiance’s car (it’s more like borrowing but you can tell it’s gonna be a bad idea - not really a spoiler, it’s a bad idea) and I find plot points like that so stressful! I also kinda struggle with books where everything goes wrong. Not everything goes wrong but it’s kind of a freewheeling mess of an adventure. However, this book does have strong Little Miss Sunshine vibes that kept me reading, and it has a big heart and it’s very funny. So if you can handle some bad/stressful decision making that you know is gonna end badly but is also going to be okay, I would say give this a read.

Here are some that I have checked out from the library, please weigh in on them:

This Is Happiness by Niall Williams - The reviews make this sound a little slow, which sounds nice for Lent, but also I’ve had a bunch of slower ones so I might return this one unread.

The Barn by Wright Thompson - This one I will definitely read. I was on hold for it foreverrrrrrr.

Fun for the Whole Family by Jennifer E. Smith - I don’t remember why I checked this out but I do hope to read it. Any opinions on it?