What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? Please share! We’d love to know.
I read Tailbone by Che Yeun for review. Set in South Korea in 2008, just as the financial crisis hit, it’s the story of a 17-year-old girl who runs away from home. A typical teen, she does no planning, just takes some clothes and a few won. She ends up living in a run-down women’s only boarding house where the other residents are sex workers. One of them takes the girl under her wing, helping her so she doesn’t have to become a prostitute herself. It’s excellently written - unforgettable, really - but very grim. You really have to be in the right mood for it.
Currently reading The Flower Sisters by Michelle Collins Anderson in prep for an upcoming Q&A with the author, and so far I’m enjoying it at least as much as her second novel, The Moonshine Women, maybe more.
Next up will be Aphrodite in Pieces by Lauren A.J. Bear for the online discussion here.
In audiobook format I’m listening to The Green Mile by Stephen King. So far it’s really not doing much for me but I’m only about 25% of the way through so the jury’s still out.
I finished reading Things In Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li. I have read seven of her other books and talked to her briefly after a reading she gave at the Weisman Art Museum. This book was written after the suicide of her son James, six years and four months after his brother Vincent also committed suicide.
The book is eloquent, thought provoking. It does not make sense of things, does not solve any riddles, crack any codes, or find any answers. It is not an act of mourning or grieving, yet there’s a kind of transparency and honesty. It could possibly be read in a sitting if one could handle all the feelings that arise.