five things Friday: October TBR edition

Well, unsurprisingly it has happened: my reading pace has definitely slowed these days, as Freddie is more awake between feedings and as the rest of life has picked up with school lunch packing and such for Hendrik. But I still wanted to put together a little October reading list to remind myself what I might pick up when I have the chance. More of an intentions list than a to do list...

YA stuff is working well for me right now in terms of concentration levels and small snippets of time to read, and the title of Julie Murphy's new book (in the universe of the Dumplin' and Puddin' books, which I loved, is perfect for October! Got Pumpkin on a kindle deal a while back and definitely hope to pick it up this month. Also on the fall-themed title, Liana Moriarty's new book, Apples Never Fall, is high on my reading wishlist. 

I've had The Montessori Baby in process for a while, and as Freddie gets a bit more active it seems like a good time to actually wrap it up. Also perhaps a good time to try an audiobook, much easier to do during feedings when he is squirmy, and a 2021 goal of mine was to pick up Barack Obama's A Promised Land. Finally, my book club will hopefully be able to meet up again soon, and we're hoping to talk about God Spare the Girls, which was a recommendation from Sarah's Bookshelves Live that sounded really interesting for discussion, and like an engaging read too.

 

As for my September reading list - not all that successful in getting through it. Not entirely surprsing given my time limitations, but also a couple of the books I really wanted to read (Very Sincerely Yours and A Slow Fire Burning) haven't come through on the library holds yet. So I will get to them eventually.

What I did read, though, I liked:

• Olympus, Texas is the kind of character-driven fiction that just works for me, for slightly hard to explain reasons. There wasn't any particular mystery or exciting plot arc, but somehow this family drama was such compelling reading that I didn't want to put it down, thanks to the . It's also the kind of character-driven fiction that doesn't really have much in the way of likeable characters, yet that feels totally fine rather than icky or tiresome; in this case I think it's because the characters are so well developed, and you can see where they are coming from with their foibles and faults, even if you disagree with their actions. The Briscoe family in this story is modeled a bit on Greek mythology, so as expected comes a lot of antics - infidelity, in-fighting, and so on. Mythology is essentially soap opera, in my opinion, and the event that kicks off this story fits that description: we see how the parents and siblings respond when March Briscoe returns to their small town for the first time after he left 2 years ago...when he was discovered sleeping with his brother's wife. The Texas setting works really well with the mythology tie-in as everything just feels larger-than-life. A really interesting exploration of family relationships, love, and psychology that manages to feel like an expansive saga even though the action takes place over the course of just a few days. ★★★★.5
• Body Talk is an exploration of embracing your body and reclaiming your narrative around it. I adored the look of the textual graphics and illustrations, and I liked Katie's snarky yet kinda peppy tone. You know the sentiment of "would you talk that negatively about a friend? Then don't talk this way about yourself!" - this is the friend who is giving you the positive talk to apply to yourself, in a wise and funny and fresh way, with lots of very practical action "homework" ideas to help reframe and retrain your thinking about your body, your self-esteem, etc. Pretty sure all women have some kind of body issues, but overall the ones around how people are made to feel shame about their size that she talks about in this book aren't exactly mine - so it didn't always feel 100% self-applicable (though I did take away some really good tidbits about how I can choose to acknowledge my body and talk to myself about it) - but even so I really appreciated learning the perspective of this experience of a body, and how our toxic cultural messages about bodies and dieting affect her. Also gave me food for thought about ways I might have bought in to the narrative society feeds us about body size and how it is related to self-worth. I need to reframe this value attachment about others, but also about myself... realizing when I receive "compliments" about being "tiny" during pregnancy or things like that, I also fall into this trap of equating size and my value, which has both consciously and subconsciously affected how I treat my body in negative ways. So as Katie teaches us, time to learn to say NOPE to that! ★★★★
  
• The Husbands wasn't as great for me as Chandler Baker's first book (The Whisper Network), but it was intriguing and twisty. It has gotten lots of comparisons to The Stepford Wives, but in reverse (that the husbands are the "housewives" in this gated neighborhood that seems fancy and nice at first glance but has some really weird twilight zone vibes running underneath); since I've never read/seen The Stepford Wives, I think I didn't quite know what I was getting into with the sort of weird or "off" elements of the setting, so I found it a little harder to digest perhaps, continually thinking, huh?, rather than realizing that the story was supposed to feel weird. I really felt seen with all of the examples and discussion of how mothers are often the "default" parent, having to constantly think of everything from packing lunches to turning in school forms to scheduling dentist appointments even on top of their own work - but much as I appreciated and nodded along with all of the examples, it did get a little bogged down with the venting about that and made the story slow down a bit, I thought. Overall, pretty enjoyable twisty neighborhood/mom drama with food for thought and also what I found to be an unexpected ending, but a little slow/weak in parts. ★★★

What have you got lined up for October? Wait, maybe don't tell me... I have way too many book ideas for how much time I have.