Reading, lately

The Next Time You See Me - Murder mystery in a small town, and one of the central figures is an adolescent outcast. I liked this, and thought the characters were interesting, but I didn't love it.

In Bitter Chill - Set in England, the story revolves around a cold case. Two girls are kidnapped, only one escapes. Thirty years later, the case is reopened and wreaks havoc on the survivor's life. I think I really liked the idea of this one, but the main character is a genealogist, which ties into the plot, and as a result the cast of characters started getting a bit unwieldy. Am I bad at remembering names? Yes. Do I think this mystery could have been a bit more compact? Yes.

All Other Nights - I really loved Horn's novel The World to Come and I was hoping that I'd love this one just as much. It's set during the revolutionary war and follows Jacob, a Jewish soldier in the Union army who becomes a spy. I liked this but not nearly as much as The World to Come.

The Story of a New Name -  The second in the Ferrante series. I waited a while before checking it out. I enjoyed the first one quite a bit but didn't feel like diving back in there right away. The storytelling is deep and beautiful, of course, but I feel like I'm the only one who gets extremely annoyed with Lila. I could never read this series straight through because I always need a break from her character by the end of the book.

The Argonauts - I had seen this recommended but had no idea what to expect and it was lovely and moving. It's a combination of memoir and musing on gender identity and love and parenthood that I tore through in almost one sitting. Bonus (for me) - it's set in LA and I always catching glimpses of the city through other people's eyes.

The Flamethrowers - The prose in this book is beautiful. And who can resist a female motorcycle racer who wants to set a speed record on the desert salt flats? However, the book is fairly long and I got irritated with the narrator's naivete part way through (specifically, all the parts set in Italy - it isn't a tiny section of the book). It ended up pulling back together for me, but there was a bit of a rough patch I had to struggle through.

Money: A Love Story - Oh. my. god. I can't believe I read this and I can't believe I'm admitting it publicly. I heard someone mention it and I'm always up for a personal finance book. This is .... not good. First of all, the intro is written by the author's mother, which I'm willing to accept (barely) because the mother is also a published author. But when the mother started including multiple sentences with multiple exclamation points (not kidding - there are at least three sentences in the intro that each have three exclamation points each. I can't see any situation, barring a hyperbolic email to a good friend, where a triple exclamation is warranted) and also happens to be a doctor who believes that menstrual cramps are caused by financial issues (not kidding - it's all about your second chakra, apparently) I knew I should back out gracefully. But none of my other waitlisted books had come in, so I barged ahead. The author is a big believer in manifesting abundance, which as far as my pessimistic brain has always understood it, means believing that money will come to you if you let it. I know, I know, it's more nuanced than that, and I am deeply cynical and could probably learn a thing or two about optimism. So I will just leave this by saying that I don't want to take financial advice from someone who has made most of her money in a pyramid scheme (sorry - network marketing business) and also managed to get herself into debt while living rent-free in Manhattan. Because I am trying to be fair I will tell you thought the section about passive income was good, other than the MLM stuff. But really, there are so many wonderful finance books out there with much more practical advice. The first one I read was Smart Women Finish Rich and it convinced me to set up an IRA right out of college, for which I'm very grateful.