Month: December 2023

2023 Reading Bracket

| Jessica Crawford

Here is my final 2023 reading bracket! (Hopefully I’m not jinxing it by posting it 3 days before the end of the year–I’m in the middle of reading a book that is fine but not a favorite, here’s to hoping I don’t finish it and then read something Earth shattering in the next 72 hours!)

I reconsidered and made a change since the last time I posted this bracket, but the final outcome would have been the same either way. I think this supports what I already knew: I love me some Gothic fantasy and science fiction, but not quite as much as I love some moving literary fiction!

Books included as some of my favorite reads of the year: “What Moves the Dead” by T. Kingfisher, “Trust” by Hernan Diaz, “Nettle & Bone” by T. Kingfisher, “The Mountain in the Sea” by Ray Nayler, “A House with Good Bones” by T. Kingfisher, “Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries” by Heather Fawcett (I actually read an ARC of the sequel and enjoyed it even more, but decided not to count it as a 2023 favorite since it won’t be published until after the new year), “A Face Like Glass” by Frances Hardinge, “Chlorine” by Jade Song, “Chain-Gang All-Stars” by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, “If We Were Villains” by M. L. Rio, “North Woods” by Daniel Mason, and “The Seventh Bride” by T. Kingfisher.

Wow, that’s a lot of T. Kingfisher!

But the top honor goes to “North Woods” 🎉💯❤️

What was your favorite book you read this year?

Book Review: THE COVENANT OF WATER by Abraham Verghese

| Jessica Crawford

THE COVENANT OF WATER by Abraham Verghese is literary historical fiction. It is a long book that is in no hurry to get where it’s going, but if you just sit back and relax, there’s much beauty to enjoy along the way. If you require your books to be plot-driven and action packed, look elsewhere. If you prefer your reads constructed around realistic characters and their loves, griefs, sacrifices and ambitions, then treat yourself to the family saga told through evocative writing here.

The story follows three generations of a family in India over the course of the twentieth century. The crux is that there seems to be an inherited condition in the family, and there is hope that someday someone will figure out what it is and how to treat it. Alternate sections of the book tell of a Scottish surgeon who joined the Indian Medical Service; his story and that of the afflicted family eventually come together, but not in the ways you might expect.

Verghese expertly summons forth a strong sense of place and time, and readers find themselves inserted into daily life for Saint Thomas Christians in the part of India that eventually became Kerala. Sociopolitical issues, such as India’s caste system, are addressed in a adroit manner.

Some readers are turned off by the book’s many graphic surgical scenes, though I personally found them of great interest–which is no surprise, since my husband has had to repeatedly ask me to stop sharing stories from my job at the hospital with him. Different strokes for different folks!

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Backlist Book Reviews

| Jessica Crawford

I read a couple of lovely backlist books recently!

Rhea felt better. She was still going somewhere terrible, but she had a hedgehog, dammit.

I only just “discovered” Kingfisher this year and she is already an autobuy for me, and so I am now also working through her backlist. This book did not disappoint! I do feel like it took too long to get to the meat of the story–we know our main character is engaged against her wishes because her family cannot afford to say “no” to a Lord, but it takes quite some time for her to actually arrive at this nobleman’s home and learn exactly why being his bride is even so much more of a bummer than she feared. But this is one of the author’s earlier works, and I have not noticed the same issue with any of her other books.

Once we do learn about the other wives, some of whom are not…exactly…living human beings, as well as just what is at stake, this is a darkly fun adventure as the main character races to try to save herself and the others. The resolution was bit too hurried and neat IMO, but the characters and quests undertaken are just so imaginative and…well, darkly fun!

The narration also includes some of the author’s trademark wit and humor.

She clung to the tile, and eventually she stopped screaming, because it didn’t seem to be helping.

I am so excited to read more of her work!

Beautifully written queer retelling of Arthurian legend from the POV of the knight Percival. It’s magical, it’s moving, and it’s very human at its core…while also being, you know, not fully human. The book itself, the cover and the handful of illustrations inside, are lovely!

Battle of the Book Covers (henceforth known as BOTBC) Part 2

| Jessica Crawford

Of the books I read in November, only a few have different US and UK book covers. Which do you prefer?

While the color scheme of the US book cover for Cara Hunter’s Murder in the Family is more eye-catching, the UK version seems more thematically appropriate to me, and gets my vote.

North Woods by Daniel Mason is one of my absolute favorite reads of the year – possibly even THE top read! That being said, no offense to the catamount, but I prefer the UK book cover.

The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson has four different covers, one for both hardcover and paperback editions in the UK and US. Personally, the US paperback version speaks to me the most, but overall I kind of just feel “meh” about all of them.