May Reads and Favorites: 2024
Another month has come and gone and unlike my knees and back, my eyes still work, at least well enough to continue to read. My mind on the other hand, well, the debate is ongoing.
May Books:
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
If Only I Had Told Her by Laura Nowlin
One Of Our Own by Lucinda Berry
Between Two Trailers by Dana Trent
Phantom Limb by Lucinda Berry
What About Will by Ellen Hopkins
Scanlines by Todd Keisling
Hell Put to Shame: The 1921 Murder Farm Massacre and the Horror of America's Second Slavery by Earl Swift
Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird by Agustina Bazterrica
Tampa by Alissa Nutting
A Happy Marriage by James Caine
The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Novelist as a Vocation by Haruki Murakami
Before and After by Andrew Shanahan
“Please, please leave the room if this will... if this will affect you.”
Little did I know that when I picked up Scanlines while at Butcher Cabin Books that it would be based on an event I was familiar with. Those who sought to watch the footage of Budd Dwyer’s press conference will understand the reference. I must have been in a brain fog when I bought the book as I did not even catch the reference, so clearly displayed on the cover art. Or maybe I was happy to get a signed copy.
*If you spend a few minutes searching, you can see this scene, in its entirety, as a part of the Traces of Death video series.
Keisling did a great job with the book, and although it is entirely too short of a read (A touch over 100 pages), I enjoyed it. As with other readers, I wanted more development. The story had elements of The Ring, where those who watched a specific video were haunted and tormented for the rest of their lives. There was a scene in the book that I genuinely thought was rather terrifying. I would have rated the book higher had it been longer. Give us more, Todd!
If you have just now found my podcast and newsletter, let it be known that I am a huge Lucinda Berry fan. It started when she all but destroyed me with Saving Noah and I have been chasing that high ever since. Or low?
This month I finished Phantom Limb and One of Our Own. Berry’s books are heavy, drawing on her experience as a clinical psychologist, and the release of audiobook versions come quickly. In the case of One of Our Own, narrated by AJ Cook, I found another powerful story produced as a high-quality audio version. The phrase “audio original thriller” riding alongside the book title should be a clue. I am old and slow to catch on. Give me a break.
This book begins with a call to a suicide prevention hotline and spirals from there. The treatment of the audio, using different voice actors, makes this far more intriguing. A good narrator and production can elevate the book, just as a bland narration can lead to a DNF. I would not say this one contained a major plot twist. I saw the ending coming but the more I listened the more I hoped I was wrong.
Tampa is one of those books that people love to Hate. And that is Hate with a capital H. Look, I get it. A graphic story that describes in detail how a 26-year-old teacher lands a job in a middle school strictly for grooming and abusing 14-year-old boys is going to ruffle feathers.
This book had a profound impact on me, so much so that I decided to babble about it for an entire episode. Rather than type all of that out just for the sake of filling up this page, you’ll have to listen to the episode when it is released on June 5th, 2024.
Finally, A New Dystopian Plot
Before and After is a dystopian novel and thankfully it brought with it an original plot line that I had not read before nor anticipated.
The story begins with Ben, who weighs 600+ pounds and has not left his apartment in nine years. You are immediately dropped into Ben’s world where a team of professionals is there to help transition him to a crane to get him out of the apartment to have his leg amputated. Right then is when the world falls apart.
I believe this one will hit anyone who has ever struggled with their weight right in the feels. Andrew Shanahan does a great job bringing you into Ben’s mind, not just once the world falls apart, but the relevant parts of his life that brought him to his current state. Shanahan also presents Ben through the world’s eyes, often times hateful and judgemental.
The book chapters are laid out in a past-present format told through journal entries and it does get dark in places. Nothing that would push this book into the splatterpunk genre or extreme horror, but the plainness at which some scenes are described are what make it so powerful of a story for me. What I loved so much about this was how original it felt. I don’t think the end of the world has ever been presented in such a scenario as this. Worth checking out.