September Reading Wrap-Up!

Hello hello everyone! Hope you had a wonderful September. The best time of the year is finally upon us. Cue all the best holidays, the best weather, and just generally the best vibes. 

This month I read 10 books, and let me tell you, some of them were real gems. So without further ado, let's get to it!

Heroes by Stephen Fry - 🍦

We started off September with a solid 10/10 book. Heroes is the second installment of Stephen Fry's Great Mythology trilogy. I haven't read the first book, but if it's anything like the second one, I am very excited to read it. Heroes follows the...you guessed it... heroes of Ancient Greece. So Fry tells the story of Perseus and Heracles and many many more of these Greek heroes. The best thing about this book is how hilarious Stephen Fry is. I mean the man is not considered a national treasure in the UK for no reason. Each story is filled with such wit and humor and overall the book is just such a romp. I'd highly recommend this if you're into Greek mythology and want an accessible book that goes into quite a lot of detail regarding these stories, but honestly, even if you're not into Greek mythology and you just want to read a funny book, this would be up your alley. 

Eligible: A Modern Retelling of Pride and Prejudice by Curtis Sittenfeld - 😐

So.... full disclosure, I've never properly read Pride & Prejudice. Blasphemy, I know. I've tried reading it about seven times. It was required reading in high school and it was the only book I never actually finished. Please don't tell my 11th grade English teacher. By all descriptions, this book should be something I enjoy. It's supposedly funny, with great characters, a world-famous romance, and just general family drama, and for some reason every time I start reading it, I can never get myself to actually read the whole thing. I've actually only read one other Jane Austen novel and that was Persuasion and I also didn't like that. I don't know what my problem is with Jane Austen, but I feel like I need to give her books another chance, particularly now that I am older (definitely) and wiser (questionable). 

I figured, what better way to start reading Jane Austen novels than reading modern retellings of Jane Austen novels. I mean, have you heard of a better idea? This book, Eligible, was alright and fun-ish. I had a decent time reading it but I couldn't get over a few problematic aspects of it. Aspects I know for a fact, aren't in the original Pride & Prejudice.

Like the original Pride & Prejudice, we are following a family with 5 grown daughters. So at the start of the book, Mr. Bennett has a heart attack and his two oldest daughters Jane and Liz, who live in NYC, return home to Cincinnati to help out the family. When there, they find out that not only is Mr. Bennett in ill-health, but the family home is falling apart and they have no money due to the Bennetts having generally terrible financial habits. Liz decides to stay back and help the family sell the home, while Mrs. Bennett spends her time trying to set Jane up with an eligible man before Jane turns 40 (The Bennett sisters are significantly aged up in this book). As luck would have it, Chip Bingley, a doctor who was recently on the Bachelor-like television show, Eligible, moves nearby and Mrs. Bennett is trying to set Jane up with Chip ASAP at this July 4th barbeque. Chip's friend, Fitzwilliam Darcy, is also a doctor who is single and comes across as a meanie, and Liz hates him but we all know they'll end up together. 

This book was fun but there were several problematic issues with it, particularly in its discussion of gender, sexual, and racial identity. This book was published in 2016, but honestly, it kind of felt like it was from 1996. There is a transgender character in this book, but the discussion of this person's sexual and gender identity is so bad that not to be dramatic, I felt like this set us, as a society, back like 15 years. Mrs. Bennett is portrayed as a homophobic racist, so much so that I genuinely didn't have any sympathy for her, and I'm not sure if that's supposed to be intentional. As in, I'm not sure if we are supposed to dislike Mrs. Bennett so much that we wish she was never in the book, to begin with. 

While reading this book I came back to the hotly debated question of whether straight white cis-gender authors should be writing queer, and or BIPOC, and or trans characters. Some argue that they should because the world is diverse and books should reflect this world, others argue that if they did they would get it wrong and might perpetuate existing stereotypes. In this case, I felt like Curtis Sittenfeld, despite an attempt to have more diversity among her characters, didn't get it right in this book. For a book written in 2016, I expected more. I have read Curtis Sittenfeld's later short story collection, You Think It, I'll Say It, which I can confidently say is much better than this book. 

I'm not sure I'm going to recommend this. While I did enjoy the setting, Liz and Darcy's relationship, Mr. Bennett's witty quips, and the way the story generally took shape, I did not like the portrayal of several characters and how their storylines played out in the book. For my mixed feelings about this book, I'm going to give it 3 stars. 

Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding - 😐

This was the second modern Pride & Prejudice retelling that I read. We're following a British woman, named Bridget Jones, for a year as she navigates dating as a woman in her 30s in London during the 1990s. To be completely honest, I also felt meh about this adaptation. I understand that 1999 was a different time, however, it wasn't THAT long ago. Bridget Jones is constantly inundated with rude comments regarding her status as a 33-year-old single woman, which is a testament to how much society has really changed between the beginning of time and 1999. I mean... it's 1999, not 1959, and women are out here being harassed for being single at age 33. Her friends and family remind her literally every single time she meets them that her time is running out and without a man, she's basically worthless to society. Obviously, this is going to impact how you view yourself and Bridget is always looking down on her looks and complaining all the time about her lack of a boyfriend. While I did find it repetitive and annoying, it's super realistic. She's relatable, no matter how annoying I found her. Bridget Jones is not supposed to be a role model or someone you aspire to be like. She represents the 'everywoman', going through the same insecurity and confidence issues that you or I might go through. Unlike the original Pride & Prejudice, Bridget has no sisters and while her mother is trying to set her up with a man, Mark Darcy, throughout the book, her mother is more concerned with her own love life rather than Bridget's. Overall, I'd also not really recommend this book. It's pretty meh and if you're interested in the plot, you should just watch the movie version which I thought was more entertaining and less repetitive.  

A Lady By Midnight by Tessa Dare - 🙅

I don't know what possessed me to read this book, but I did, and you know what, it wasn't THAT bad. This is one of those cheesy historical romances that people are always making fun of and honestly, they are with good reason cause this story is just so ridiculous. However, I need to respect the fact that the story doesn't take itself very seriously either. We, including the author, know that this isn't the next American literary masterpiece. We're reading this cause it's entertaining and takes our mind off the fact that the Earth is undergoing a climate crisis and that there is an ongoing worldwide pandemic at the moment. 

The story follows a woman named Kate who is this spinster lady, which really means that she is a young, beautiful 26 year old, but it's like the 1800s so 26 means she's one step away from death. She runs into this cold-hearted Corporal dude named Samuel and for some reason, they end up in a weird circumstance in which he pretends to be engaged to her. And like obviously they fall in love cause it's a romance. 

Honestly, I wasn't really invested in Kate and Samuel's romance. Kate was cool and all, but Samuel just seemed so extra. The entire book this man keeps pushing her away but then going back to her, like dude, make up your mind. You're a grown man. Just decide whether you like her or not, and clearly you do if you keep going back to her. I also thought that Kate really needed to extricate herself from this relationship cause clearly this man needs to figure some stuff on his own before entering a relationship. But for whatever it was, I read it pretty quickly which means that it must've been somewhat entertaining. Would I recommend? Sure, if you're up for some mindless reading that is fast and entertaining.  

 

Don't You Forget About Me by Mhairi McFarlane - 🙅

This book had so much promise. Really. The author has such a great writing style. The main female protagonist was so funny. But this guy... this main male protagonist, was devoid of a personality. I mean I read the entire book and I genuinely don't know what to say about him, because there is nothing to say about him. All I really know is that he had a dog and owned a bar.

We're following a woman named Georgina who has the worst luck. She's fired from her job and catches her boyfriend cheating on her on the same day. She ends up getting a gig to work as a bartender and it turns out the man who owns the bar is her ex-boyfriend from high school, Lucas, who doesn't recognize her. That's the set-up. See? So much potential. To really get into the qualms, I'm going to have to delve into spoilers. 

*SPOILERS*

Lucas recognizes Georgina immediately but pretends not to know her for 75% of the book because he still feels bad about their break-up that happened 15 years ago. Yes. Let me say that differently so that you can understand how ridiculous this is. Lucas is a 33 year old man who genuinely thinks it's a good idea to pretend to not know his ex-girlfriend 15 years after they broke up because he's still mad about their break-up. He literally got married and widowed in the time between, but he's still mad about breaking up with Georgina in high school. So he pretends to not know her. Even after she starts working for him and he sees her every day. You thought the historical romance book was ridiculous? At least that book didn't feature a complete idiot as the main love interest. 

When Georgina did actually find out that Lucas recognized her, the romance between them dragged so much, since not only is Lucas an idiot, he also has no personality. We have an idiot with no personality. Georgina deserves better. 

*END OF SPOILERS*

By the mid-way point, I was reading this book just to finish it. I couldn't wait for it to be over. Overall, not recommending this, but I would read something else by this author which rarely happens, so good job Mhairi McFarlane. 

Stone Cold Heart by Laura Griffin - 😐

I'm trying to think of what to say about this book and I genuinely don't remember much. I know it was entertaining cause I finished it quickly. I remember really liking the main female protagonist because she's this cool forensic anthropologist. It's a thriller/crime detective novel. I don't really remember the ending and who the killer ended up being. I don't even remember the crime itself to be honest. But it was a quick read and fun, so that counts for something, right? 

The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazlewood - 🍪

This was so much fun. So. Much. Fun. Hands down, best romance I read this year. It was so cute, so funny, and just so adorable. I think the fact that our main protagonist was a PhD student definitely made this more enjoyable for me. From now on, I'd like all my romance novels to be about PhD students. Thanks. 

We're following this young woman named Olive, who's a Biology PhD student. Through some series of circumstances, all involving the romance trope cliche gods, she ends up fake dating this young professor named Adam. Adam is this notorious mean guy professor who all the PhD students don't like, so obviously, he's the right guy to fake date.

Olive and Adam were just so funny together. Throughout the book they meet in Starbucks once a week for a coffee to convince people that they are actually dating and I don't know why I thought this was so hilarious. Like people have interviews at Starbucks. Or they do their homework there. These two thought that the way to convince people that they are romantically involved would be to go order a coffee together at Starbucks and sit across from each other drinking coffee for 20 mins. Not, oh I don't know, taking a walk together, holding hands, sitting outside on the grass or something? I mean they live in California. I hear the place has nice weather. At minimum, why didn't they eat lunch together? How many PhDs does it take to think of a good fake dating scheme? 

Overall, I'd highly recommend this. It was just such a fun read. 

Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca - 🍦

I genuinely don't know how to explain this book. It is so short that if I give any in-depth summary I'd spoil the whole thing. So here I am giving you as little explanation as possible. The book is essentially a series of emails and chatroom messages between two people. They start off as strangers but get to know each other relatively well. It's a horror book. Okay that's the entire explanantion. 

This is genuinely one of the most bizarre things I've read, if not THE most bizarre thing I've read. It's so weird and disgusting but also oddly entertaining and leaves you in a haze of "wtf" emotions. So really it's what horror should be like. I'd recommend if you have a strong stomach. 

These last two books were covered in the Useless Doctor's Book Club podcast, so I won't be spending too much time on them. So if you're intrigued to know more, check out the podcast here!

Gold Diggers by Sanjena Sathian - 🍦

My love for this book partially stems from me being an Indian-American and just relating to the characters in this book a lot. So many of the jokes made had me cracking up and it just felt so nice to read about people that I could wholeheartedly relate to. The gold subplot in this story forms the other part of my love for this book. 

We're following this guy named Neil Narayan. It's the early 2000s in Atlanta and Neil is a high schooler. He's not a bad student, he's just a guy who is relatively apathetic. We all know a Neil Narayan in our lives. He's more interested in his neighbor, Anita Dayal. Turns out, Anita has a major secret. Her mom and her steal gold, melt it down, and drink it. The idea here being, when you drink other people's gold, you gain their ambitions and drive. So Anita and Neil begin drinking other people's gold in order to improve their grades and secure a better future for themselves. Stuff happens, and we see Neil and Anita drift apart, but they end up meeting by chance years later as adults and we see how their gold-drinking has influenced their life. 

I mention this in the podcast, but I genuinely thought this gold scheme plot was so clever. Indian people highly value gold. When a person is born or when they get married or really for any major life milestone, gold is given as a gift. People invest in gold as an investment in their future. The idea that you would steal gold in order to profit off of someone's ambitions that are connected to that gold, I personally thought, was ingenious. This idea that to survive in capitalist America, we need to steal gold and exploit the ambitions in that gold, really blended the Indian and American culture together in my head. Honestly, for this alone, I would have given the book 5 stars. But I also could not stop laughing throughout this book. I will say that I enjoyed the first half much more than the second half of this book, but it was still great throughout. I'd HIGHLY recommend. 

It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover - 😐

This is an intense and emotional romance novel. I don't think I did a very good job explaining my thoughts about this book on the podcast, so I'm going to try and remedy that a little here. To do that though, I'm going to have to delve into spoilers. 

*SPOILERS*

This book details an abusive relationship between our main two protagonists, Lily and Ryle. Lily comes from an abusive family and her experience of having to live through that definitely influences her perspective on her relationship with Ryle. In the podcast I talk about not understanding Lily's decision to stay with Ryle after two instances in which he very clearly abuses her. I don't stand by that statement anymore. It's evident that the author was trying to portray how such a relationship would play out realistically. Lily is married to Ryle at that point and her business partner is Ryle's sister. Obviously in addition to her love for Ryle, she's very much intertwined into his family. There are a lot of factors at play here and I think I forgot that when I was explaining my thoughts. 

I think my main qualm with this book was that I didn't necessarily find Lily and Ryle's relationship generally very believable. Everything in their relationship moved way too quickly, too quickly for me to believe that they ever actually loved each other. In fact, I didn't even believe that they really loved each other at all, rather I thought everything was just lust. Ryle ends up pleading to have sex with her, after meeting her twice. After meeting 4 times they say they love each other, and they end up getting married on a whim without even properly knowing stuff about each other. Ryle hides a lot about his past from Lily which ends up manifesting in a truly terrible way. So when Lily speaks about deciding to stay with Ryle because she loves him and he loves her, I think in my head I just didn't see that aspect of this relationship. Where is this fun-loving Ryle who truly loves Lily and would do anything for her? Cause all I see are two people lusting over each other and a man who was terrible from beginning to end and who literally begged a woman for sex cause he couldn't control his lust. Overall, I still stand by my 3 star rating because I think the plot could have been executed better. I appreciate Hoover's notion of wanting to portray a realistic toxic relationship, however, the lack of nuance in Ryle's character, the speed with which the entire story takes place, and the emphasis on lust rather than love in Lily and Ryle's relationship I felt took away from the actual point of the story. 

*END OF SPOILERS*

Anyways, those were my thoughts on It Ends With Us. I'm not sure if I'm going to read another Colleen Hoover. I haven't had much luck with her books previously either. I think emotional, intense romantic dramas are just not up my alley. But just because this book doesn't suit my reading tastes, doesn't mean it won't suit yours. 

 

So there you have it folks, the 10 books I read in September. Did you read anything good this month? If so, let me know. Hope your Spooktober is going well! Happy reading!