September Bookish Wrap Up
Hello hello! We are back with another blog post. This time, it's going to be about me telling you what books I've read through the month of the September. But real talk, where did September even go? I wake up and bam it's already October!
Anyways, onto the more pressing issue, what did I read through the month of September?
We started off the month with a book that was the definition of lackluster.
You Deserve Each Other by Sarah Hogle
This is a love story. We got two people, Naomi and Nick, who are engaged to be married, but the problem is, they hate each other. My problem with this book really just stems from the fact that both Naomi and Nick are relatively unlikeable, but not in a good way. Sometimes characters are unlikeable but you like the fact that they are unlikeable? That didn't happen here. Half of the book consists of Naomi and Nick pranking each other to get the other person to break up with them. Like....? You are both adults, someone just call it. You don't need to prank anyone. The other half is them falling back in love with each other. It was kinda dull and I didn't really enjoy it. But maybe you will, so give a shot maybe?
After reading that, I decided to switch genres entirely and read something thriller ish. I'm not even really sure how to categorize this book other than it was literally amazing.
The Devil All The Time by Donald Ray Pollock
I love a good family saga and throw in thriller, gothic elements and you got one of my favorite books of the year. After reading this book I felt like I emerged from the forest covered in dirt after hiking through it for 2 weeks. This book takes place in rural West Virginia/Ohio between post-WW2 and the 1960s. It's very gritty and very violent, with some crazy gross visuals, so if you are a little squeamish, I would recommend not reading this. But if you're down for some West Virginia/Ohio wildness, I would 100% recommend. I don't even really know how to explain this without spoiling it but here is an attempt. There are 3 storylines that somehow interconnect, but we are mainly following this young man named Arvin Russell. There is a creepy church, a lot of praying, a lot of sex, a lot of violence and that is my description. Also, there is a Netflix movie based on this book with Tom Holland and Robert Pattinson. It differs slightly from the book, but it's a good movie.
The next book I read in September was Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney. I'm not going to explain anything about it or my reaction to it, because I'm saving that for a different post I hope to make soon. So stay tuned for that.
Okay, moving on. The book I read after that deviated greatly from the books I usually read.
Sita : An Illustrated Re-telling of the Ramayana by Devdutt Pattanaik
This is a very interesting book. The author is a mythologist and does a lot of research on Hindu epics and myths and takes this story and dives deeply into the different ways it can be interpreted. The footnotes are literally as long as the actual text. Like the man did his research. If you are familiar with the Ramayana I would suggest reading this because it does a really good job of presenting and organizing the different interpretations of the story as well as explaining the reasoning behind certain acts and judgements of characters. I think some parts of Hindu epics tend to be glossed over by Hindu society, particularly the appearances of nonbinary characters and characters who today we would consider transgender. Pattanaik does a great job of bringing them to light in his book, which is something that I appreciate. If you would like a more modern interpretation on a traditional epic, I would really recommend reading this.
The only thing I could do after reading 500 pages of the Ramayana was apparently read a light romance.
So I read The Worst Best Man by Mia Sosa
This book was also a pretty lackluster romance. I liked the main female protagonist and the main male protagonist wasn't bad. I just didn't really connect with their love story. Felt a little soap opera-esque. Like this was too cheesy and unnecessarily dramatic for me, and that is saying a lot considering I'm someone who watches Hallmark films for fun. Also, I felt like it ended so weirdly without addressing any major issues, and I was like ???? Okay. The basic gist of this book is that there is a woman named Lina Santos and she is a wedding planner in DC. Three years prior, she got left at the altar and blames her ex-fiance's brother for convincing him to not marry her. Through some series of circumstances, she ends up having to work with her ex-fiance's brother on a wedding project thing and things go from there.
The final book I read was a classic that has been sitting on my shelf forever. Look at me finally reading books that I physically own.
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
I will be honest, I already knew what happens in this book since I watched the BBC adaptation before and that 100% impacted how I felt about this book. This is a book about industrial, capitalism culture masquerading as a pseudo-love story. The love story itself is not very interesting, but the character development of our main protagonist Margaret Hale is very interesting. She goes from being super judgmental and ignorant about the working class to being very independent and thoughtful. It's good. This is a Victorian classic, much of the likes of Pride and Prejudice and really anything written by Jane Austen or Charlotte Bronte, so it did take me a while to get through it, but it was pretty good. I know that if I didn't already know what happened, I would have probably enjoyed it more because man are there so many twists. I definitely think I will be reading some more Victorian literature in the coming few months because I'm kind of enjoying them.
So there you have it. My September bookish wrap up. Hope you enjoyed! If you did, let me know. If you didn't, also let me know. I won't take offense. Promise.
