What I Read November

A photo posted by Sophie Overett (@sophieoverett) on Nov 30, 2015 at 2:06am PST

I've been a bit slack with my reading the last couple of months, something I'm hoping to rectify over the holidays. Still, I got through a few books in November, and a few really great ones too.

Donna Tartt's A Secret History is probably my favourite as far as books I read this month, and I've been singing it's praises to anyone who'll listen. It's one of those funny ones who's been recommended to me so many times it's almost comical, and I started it earlier in the year for my book club, but never quite powered through it. This time though, I've devoured it. This story of a group of students at a university murdering a friend unfolds in such an odd, yet natural way, and Tartt's handle on language is basically sublime. It might just be one of my favourite books this year.

My love affair with Ann Rule / true crime has continued with The I5 Killer too. I don't think this one is as transcendent and intimate as The Stranger Beside Me, nor as compelling as Small Sacrifices, but she's still a remarkably compelling writer and this story about a sex criminal's escalating behaviour is both enthralling and devastating.

Speaking of love affairs, Rachael Briggs was one of the first poets I really connected with, having heard her read at Queensland Poetry Festival a number of years ago. I finally got around to picking up her debut collection, Free Logic this month and it's been a great read. She captures gender fluidity and strange companionship really beautifully, and it comes through in virtually every poem in this award-winning collection. Interestingly, I actually read most of the collection aloud because the words and the rhythm of Briggs' poetry is just that good. It doesn't roll off the tongue exactly, but these poems like to be there all the same. They're lovely, and aching, and demonstrate a really great new voice in poetry.

And sure, let's go with the love affair theme in the rest of these things - I've started reading Hana Kimi by Hisaya Nakajo, a manga which seems to have been around since the dawn of time (or, well, 1996). It's the story of a girl who travels halfway around the world to meet an athlete she adores only to find herself enrolled in an all-boy's school. It's pretty typical as far as shoujo Japanese manga goes, but I'm enjoying it enough at the moment (particularly after long days at work!)

Anyway, what did you read this month?

What I Read September

A photo posted by Sophie Overett (@sophieoverett) on Sep 30, 2015 at 6:25pm PDT

I haven't had a lot of time to read this month. Between moving house and the day job, all my spare time has really been taken up by unpacking, writing or, y'know, watching The Bachelorette. Still, I managed to get a few under my belt, and it was a few really great books which makes the small list a little more rewarding.

Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery by Robert Kolker
My true crime binge doesn't seem to be slowing, particularly when each book I've picked up has been so good. This one about five dead women who's individual missing cases went ignored because they were sex workers until four of the five turned up wrapped in burlap on a beach is harrowing and heartbreaking and one of the best books I've read recently. Kolker captures the intricacies of the case and both the troubling and entirely ordinary circumstances that lead women to pursue dangerous work and men to exploit that.

Dancing Girls by Margaret Atwood
Oh, Margaret Atwood. You are basically my straight up fave. This is an early collection from her (first pub'd in 1977) and it reads like one. It's very experimental, and some stories work a lot better than others, but it comes together like most Atwood collections do - as a compelling and biting snapshot of the complexities of womanhood. It's pretty darn great.

Powers Volume 1 and 2 by Brian Michael Bendis
This series has been on my to-read list for years, so it was good to finally get around to it. If I'm honest, I don't love the art, but the story is so good and so well-paced it's easy to overlook. It's smart, funny and taps into an emotional core that not many superhero comics are capable of. It's pretty magical and I'll definitely be continuing the series.

How about you? What did you read in September?

What I Read August

A photo posted by Sophie Overett (@sophieoverett) on Aug 30, 2015 at 10:25pm PDT

I haven't been reading as much as I'd like to lately. The combination of work, househunting and trying to get back on track after a month overseas has slowed me down on a lot of fronts.

Anyway, the books I managed to read: 

I'm a big Neil Gaiman fan, and tried to read American Gods a few years ago but couldn't get through it. I decided to give it another go this month, and really, really enjoyed it. Gaiman has a great sense of worldbuilding, fun and charm and it's out in full in American Gods. My only criticism of it is that it was a bit long, but more time with the characters, particularly Shadow and Laura was worth it.

I read The Stranger Beside Me by Anne Rule a couple of months ago and really enjoyed Rule's honest and compelling true crime voice. I picked up Small Sacrifices this month and have virtually inhaled it. The story of a woman who shot her three children isn't one that will appeal to everyone, but Rule approaches it honestly and emphatically, and from every side of the story. It's an awesome read.

And then The Department of Speculation! A total departure from every other book this month. Jenny Offill was my workshop leader at Tin House and I kind of fell in love with her a whole lot. The Dept. of Speculation is everything I hoped it would be too - the tightly told story of a marriage disintegrating. Offill genuinely taps into this well of anxiety and depression, intimacy and womanhood, in a way that had me read it in basically one sitting.

Finally, moar Ms. Marvel and starting All New X-Men, because I am a huge nerd, and both these series are A+ awesome. 

What have you been reading this month?

What I Read June

Books I read in June #2015inbooks

A photo posted by Sophie Overett (@sophieoverett) on Jun 29, 2015 at 2:47pm PDT

So! Another kind-of-slow reading month. I've been a bit crazy-town getting ready for my trip to America, (I leave on Monday!!) and swept up in events and commitments, which hasn't really made it reading-friendly.

That said, I've been powering through Marvel comics, reading the excellent third volume of Hawkeye and equally excellent first two volumes of Captain Marvel. Kelly Sue DeConnick and Matt Fraction are total powerhouse comic writers who write crazy thrilling action and also moments of such heart it's almost hard to believe you're reading a superhero story. It's a pretty wonderful thing.

Young Avengers is similarly a lot of fun, well paced, with a compelling cast of characters and an awesome, next gen feel.

The books I've read have both been veeeery different tonally. I'm powering through Ann Rule's The Stranger Beside Me, the true account of Ted Bundy. It's an amazingly intricate and detailed read (helped by the fact that Rule knew Bundy so well), and the book explores every faced of the cases, drawing an interesting profile on Bundy that's as mysterious and thorough as perhaps it ever could be.

Lastly, Jenny Offill's The Dept. of Speculation is a moving and intimate portrayal of a marriage. I'm pretty excited by this one as I'll be learning from Offill at the Tin House Summer Writer's Workshop in just a few weeks, and this book is so much what I like to read, what I love to write. It's never saccharine, but somehow manages to speak to you so gently and so sweetly and so despairingly all the same.

So maybe not a whole lot of books this month, but a lot of good ones at the very least.

What have you been reading this month?

What I Read May

A photo posted by Sophie Overett (@sophieoverett) on May 27, 2015 at 2:42pm PDT

So after the dismal reading month of April, I feel a bit more into it, which is pretty awesome. I powered through some pretty amazing reads across a pretty diverse range of books, from contemporary literature to paranormal YA and some straight up horror manga. It was a pretty good month.

My favourite has probably been reading the final installment of the Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy, Dreams of Gods and Monsters by Laini Taylor. This has already made it's way into my favourite series' ever, and it's a wonderful and explosive conclusion to the series.

Less explosive is the second Vampire Academy book, Frost Bite, which is still a great story. Richelle Mead always does an awesome job of finding this perfect balance of schlock and darkness to the series. It's not exactly high lit, but it's such a fun series, who cares? Plus Rose's evolution even from the first book is such a terrific character arc, and it makes me really excited to see where the series goes with her character.

The biggest disappointment was Sin City. I hadn't read the series before - just seen the first movie - but I found it lacked emotional punch for me. Plus the sexism, homophobia and the fact that all the women tended to be naked no matter what the situation was a bit off-putting. I think I'll probably try the second one if I can get it cheap, but not stress too hard about it.

I read Uzumaki almost straight away afterwards, and the parallel was pretty huge. Uzumaki is the story of a town haunted by spirals. It sounds really weird, and it is, I suppose, but author and artist, Junji Ito does this insanely cool job of making it believable. It helps that the art is inspired and the characters well-developed. If you're into horror, I really recommend checking this one out. (There's a particularly nuts episode of it where all the pregnant women in town get infected with a mosquito-like virus that makes them crave human blood. It's amazing and horrifying and the vilification of women who are at a point where they are so often represented as sacred is very compelling).

Last two books I read were Lost and Found by Brooke Davies and Karen Russell's amazing collection, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves. I've grouped these together mostly because of their really successful use of child protagonists. Both are wonderfully told and super emotive books. I probably was a little more drawn to Russell's collection because, as most people know, I love a healthy dash of magic in my stories, and her tales of ghost fish and girls falling in love with the demons possessing them makes for a fascinating and moving collection.

That's it for me for May! How about you? What did you read this month? 

What I Read April

A photo posted by Sophie Overett (@sophieoverett) on Apr 28, 2015 at 2:52pm PDT

Oddly enough, I really find reading a short story collection slows down my reading habit. It’s not that I didn’t devour (and totally love!) Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery and Other Stories, just that hopping in and out of storyworlds means it’s a little harder to plunge into a whole new one once it’s finished.

I ended up following the taut horror of Jackson’s stories with the totally wonderful This One Summer by Jillian and Mariko Tamaki. It’s a gorgeous coming of age story that deals with shifting friendships and mental illness very tenderly.

I finished up the month with Dark Rooms by Lili Anolik which I’m really still making my mind up on. It’s an engaging and compelling story, and Anolik is an interesting writer, but I can’t help but feel with a few changes it could’ve made a terrific YA novel instead of this adult crime novel it currently sits at.

So yeah, a quiet few weeks of reading! How about you? What did you read in April?

2015 in Books

A photo posted by Sophie Overett (@sophieoverett) on Mar 31, 2015 at 11:06pm PDT

(also not pictured, coz I lent it to a friend, but Megan Abbott's Dare Me)

If February was a lighter month, March was pretty good. I read seven books total which, given I also finished and edited a 60,000 word YA manuscript, is pretty good.

Probably my favorite of the lot was Matt Fraction's Hawkeye. I'm a pretty big fan of Fraction generally and had the crazy awesome chance to meet him at Brisbane Writers Festival back in 2013. He's such an intelligent and funny writer, and he's very good at writing action packed stories with compelling characters who don't fall into the typical hero mold. It makes for some pretty terrific reading. My favourite part of the first two volumes was definitely the chapter told through the dog's point of view. The art that accompanied was insanely creative and a really unique reading experience.

I also really, really loved Dare Me by Megan Abbott. I'd heard mixed things about this from a few people who found that Abbott was too involved in the story to be able to tell it compellingly to readers, but I respectfully disagrree. I found this story of competitive cheerleaders desperate for connection charged and thrilling, an interesting story beautifully told.

It's a shame I can't say the same about A Small Madness or The Great Zoo of China. Neither are bad books at all (in fact, I enjoyed both), but I found them to be a touch superficial in very different ways. A Small Madness, while compelling, and while I do think Dianne Touchell is a talented writer, never quite hit the mark for me as a reader. I found she told instead of showed a lot of the time, and the relationships never came away fully formed for me.

The Great Zoo of China was fun, but similarly didn't quite hit the mark. Matt Reilly is doubtlessly terrific with action sequences, but I had trouble telling characters apart because there wasn't a whole lot to hold onto in them and, to be frank, the book didn't seem to want you to care too much about them.

That can't be said for Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay, which is one of the most moving essay collections I've read in recent memory. She has a wonderful propensity for ripping out your heart when you least expect it. I inhaled this collection after seeing her at All About Women at Sydney Opera House earlier in the month, and found myself tremendously affected by it. Wonderfully written by a wonderful writer.

And Perfume (which I haven't actually finished yet). Also terrifically engaging. It was our book for book club this month, and I think other people liked it more than me, but it's still an engaging read. I'm sure I'll have more thoughts when I finish it.

And that's it from me for March. What about you? What have you been reading?

What I'm Reading: February

A photo posted by Sophie Overett (@sophieoverett) on Feb 23, 2015 at 1:32pm PST

February's been a weirdly slow reading month for me. It's a shame, because January was such a great one. Still, knocking four books off my to-read list is not a bad feat.

It's been a good list too - one of my 24 before 25 goals has been to read Jane Austen's canon, so reading both Sense and Sensibility and Emma has been a pretty riveting experience. Her knack for character dynamics, writing sisters and the mistaken-emotion is a lot more nuanced and compelling than I think she receives credit for. I mean, the romance and humour's great too, but there's some beautiful character interplay in the quieter moments too.

I also read Alice Pung's Laurinda which is totally wonderful. I've read it described as an Australian Mean Girls and it is in a lot of ways, but it has different strengths in it too, particularly in protagonist, Lucy and her family. It unraveled and sewed itself back together so seamlessly you hardly recognised the process as it happened.

And man, I FINALLY finished Y the Last Man this month. To say it's one of my favourite series' ever is a pretty accurate surmise of my feelings. I'm sure I'll write a more in-depth post down the line, but for now, just have all of the yes.

And that's about it from me in Feb. How about you? What have you been reading?