It’s been a good few months of reading! I’ve read some really great books recently – the sort where you find yourself willingly going to bed early so you can curl up and read. Yep, that great. I can highly recommend you check out:
Friends and Strangers, J. Courtney Sullivan
Contains some subjects dear to my heart. The story revolves around two women – Elisabeth, a new mother who has left her beloved New York City to move to her husband’s small hometown upstate, and Sam, a student in her last year of university in the same town, who ends up nannying for Elisabeth. Each feels adrift in her life and seizes upon the other as a source of friendship and belonging, revelling in their commonalities while refusing to see or admit to the differences that make their life experiences much further apart than they initially seem. The book touches on age, class, education and the sort of cultural and social capital that I would argue are fairly pertinent to a New York life. The characters are wonderfully developed and the story, while progressing, mainly backgrounds the characters in a quiet way that’s reflective of the slow pace of the small town both women find themselves in. This is the favourite of my recent reads!
The Very Nice Box, Laura Blackett
From the description, I kind of expected this book to be quite dystopian, but it’s not really – and is all the better for it in my opinion. Ava is a product designer for a Brooklyn-based flatpack furniture company that is not IKEA but is absolutely meant to make you think of IKEA with every workplace description – and there are many, because a huge amount of this novel takes place in Ava’s office. That’s by design – Ava has a tragedy in her past that keeps her working far harder and longer, and with more devotion, than would generally be considered healthy. When a charismatic new employee, Mat, starts working with her, Ava initially resists his charms and interest in her but eventually finds herself falling for him. So far, so normal, right – he’s either great but there’s a misunderstanding to be resolved (it’s a love story!) or he’s dangerous and Ava has to get away (it’s a thriller!). It’s kind of both and neither, and I know that sounds ridiculous but to say much more would result in definite spoilers. It kind of reminded me of Where’d You Go, Bernadette? in the writing style and sparse, stark visual imagery that accompanies the story, and I think if you like Maria Semple’s writing, you’ll like this also.
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin
This one was heavily hyped when it came out last year, and with good reason. It’s about Sam and Sadie, two video game designers– best friends mostly, but not always, and with a fractured, confusing background to their friendship that staggers them. True love never did run smooth, but these two are not lovers; although that quote still overwhelmingly applies. Whenever I’ve read anyone else’s thoughts on this book, two things stand out: everybody seems to love it and everyone is confused by that, because “I don’t care about video game design!” And count me into that cohort, but it doesn’t matter: not because the video game design takes a backseat – it’s quite the opposite actually, it almost drives the story – but because Gabrielle Zevin writes so well and so wholeheartedly that you will care about video game design, if only for the duration of the book.
The Judd Crew 