Top 10 Upcoming Releases I’d Walk into a Lion’s Den to Get Early
/45 Comments/by SuzanneTop Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Top Ten Tuesday has been one of my favorite memes ever since I started blogging, so huge thanks to Jana for taking over the hosting duties!
This week’s TTT topic is Books I’d Slay a Lion to Get Early. I tweaked the topic a little just because I LOVE lions and even the hypothetical idea of slaying one just made me sad, lol. But anyway, there are definitely some incredible books coming out that I would do almost anything to get my hands on early, even walking into a den of lions!
Top 10 Upcoming Releases I’d Walk into a Lion’s Den to Get Early
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1. THE WINTER OF THE WITCH by Katherine Arden
(This Russian folklore-inspired trilogy has become one of my favorite series and I’m just dying to see how it ends.)
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2. MUSE OF NIGHTMARES by Laini Taylor
(After the way Strange the Dreamer ended, I need this book in my life ASAP!)
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3. ON THE COME UP by Angie Thomas
(The Hate U Give was one of my favorite reads of 2017 so I truly can’t wait to read more from Angie Thomas.)
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4. MY PLAIN JANE by Cynthia Hand, Jodi Meadows, and Brodie Ashton
(If this is anywhere near as hilarious as the first book, I’m going to be laughing for days and I can’t wait!)
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5. ESCAPING FROM HOUDINI by Kerri Maniscalco
(I need more Audrey Rose and Thomas Cresswell in my life!)
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6. THE LADY’S GUIDE TO PETTICOATS AND PIRACY by Mackenzi Lee
(Felicity gets a book of her own!!!!!!!)
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7. HULLMETAL GIRLS by Emily Skrutskie
(This one first caught my attention because the author was raised in my home state, but what really makes me want to get my hands on it ASAP is the author’s own description of her book, which I saw on Goodreads: “This is my third book. The closer I look at it, the more I realize it’s made of things that scare me. Physical things, like surgery and irrevocable body modification and sci-fi body horror. Abstract things, like being known too well, giving away too much of yourself, and being used. But it’s also made of things I love: spaceships, jacked up cyborgs, angry girls, and machines with a little sass in them. I hope it scares you, but you love it too.”)
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8. CATWOMAN: SOULSTEALDER by Sarah J. Maas
(It’s Catwoman and it’s Maas…what more do I need to say?)
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9. VENGEFUL by V.E. Schwab
(How much do I love Schwab? So much so that I haven’t even read Vicious yet and I already want the sequel so that I can binge them together!)
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10. KING OF SCARS by Leigh Bardugo
(I quite literally just heard about this one yesterday and have just been sitting here with grabby hands ever since, like GIMME, please!)
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Question: What books would you do just about anything to get your hands on early?
REVIEW: YOU THINK IT, I’LL SAY IT
/18 Comments/by SuzanneAlso by this author: Eligible: A Modern Retelling of Pride and Prejudice
Published by Transworld Digital on May 3, 2018
Genres: Fiction, Contemporary Fiction
Pages: 256
Source: Netgalley
Amazon
Goodreads
FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.
MY REVIEW:
I’m normally not the biggest fan of short stories. Whenever I read one, I always think of it as a teaser for a full-fledged novel that I’d rather be reading. Just when I’m starting to get to know and become invested in character, boom, the story’s over. I’m a big fan of Curtis Sittenfeld’s writing, however, so when I heard she had written You Think It, I’ll Say It, a collection of ten short stories, I decided to give them a try, figuring that if any writer out there could change my mind about short stories, it would be Sittenfeld.
What appealed to me the most as I was reading each of these stories is the same thing that always appeals to me when I read anything from Curtis Sittenfeld and that’s the way she is able to get inside of a character’s head and convey everything they’re thinking in such a way that I then can’t get her characters out of my head. They just always leave me with so much to think about, and all 10 main characters in this collection did exactly that. Sittenfeld presents each of these characters’ stories from their individual perspectives so that we’re getting an ongoing internal dialogue from each main character as we’re watching the events of the stories play out. In doing so, Sittenfeld is able to weave several important messages and themes throughout all ten stories so as to make it a cohesive collection.
These themes, in addition to the characters themselves, are what truly kept me engaged. The central theme of the collection is basically that we’re all human and we all mess up, especially when it comes to our relationships with other equally fallible humans. All of Sittenfeld’s characters tend to make assumptions about people, maybe based on how they look or how they act, and more often than not, their assumptions end up being not only wrong, but also flat-out unfair. Her characters are also prone to misinterpreting signals they think other people are giving off, which leads to awkward and embarrassing situations. There were times when I found myself judging them as well, but then a few pages later, I’d think “I could see myself doing the same thing this character has done, so maybe I’ll just shut up and not judge them.” In that sense, even though Sittenfeld soundly criticizes these characters for their erroneous snap judgments, she also makes them sympathetic and relatable. I liked that balance, which she is able to successfully strike with each story.
I also liked that the stories all felt very modern and timely and were filled with Sittenfeld’s trademark insightful social commentary and satire. There’s mention of the Trump administration in at least one of them, gender inequality factors in at times, there is at least one story that focuses on LGBTQ issues, and one that focuses on the challenges of being a working mother.
I won’t go through all ten stories in detail, but I will say that I don’t think there’s a weak story in the entire collection. I definitely had my favorites though, including ‘The Prairie Wife,” where an unhappy housewife, Kirsten, is obsessed with Lucy, a popular celebrity. Kirsten recognizes Lucy, a Martha Stewart-type who is now married with two children and living a conservative lifestyle, as someone she worked with, and had a sexual relationship with, at a summer camp many years ago. Everything about Lucy’s life infuriates Kirsten because she thinks Lucy is now living a lie and Kirsten dreams of using the knowledge she has about her to destroy her. This was such an intense and riveting story and I absolutely loved the unexpected twist at the end.
Another favorite was “The World Has Many Butterflies,” which contains the title of the actual short story collection, “You Think It, I’ll Say It” in it. It turns out “You Think It, I’ll Say It” is the name of a gossip-driven game that two people – Graham and Julie – play every time they see each other. Julie misinterprets why Graham has started playing this game with her and all kinds of awkwardness ensues. I felt secondhand embarrassment for Julie while I was reading this one!
My only issue with this collection was exactly what I feared it might be, that I would become invested enough in the main character from each story, that I would want to hear more from them. Each story is well-crafted and conveys an interesting and relevant theme, but I couldn’t help but think by the end that I would rather have 10 novels from Sittenfeld about these characters than these brief, although beautiful, snippets. I’m going to classify that as a “me” problem though. It has nothing to do with the stories themselves or with Sittenfeld’s writing. She is just such a gifted storyteller that I’ll always want more.
While I can’t say that Curtis Sittenfeld has completely changed my mind about short stories overall, I would still highly recommend this very solid collection of stories to anyone who is interested in reading stories filled with messy and unforgettable characters as well as insightful social commentary about how people read and misread each other. I’d recommend this collection both to those who are new to Curtis Sittenfeld and to those who are long-time fans.
GOODREADS SYNOPSIS:
A suburban mother of two fantasizes about the downfall of an old friend whose wholesome lifestyle empire may or may not be built on a lie. A high-powered lawyer honeymooning with her husband is caught off guard by the appearance of the girl who tormented her in high school. A shy Ivy League student learns the truth about a classmate’s seemingly enviable life.
Curtis Sittenfeld has established a reputation as a sharp chronicler of the modern age who humanizes her subjects even as she skewers them. Now, with this first collection of short fiction, her “astonishing gift for creating characters that take up residence in readers’ heads” (The Washington Post) is showcased like never before. Throughout the ten stories in You Think It, I’ll Say It, Sittenfeld upends assumptions about class, relationships, and gender roles in a nation that feels both adrift and viscerally divided.
With moving insight and uncanny precision, Curtis Sittenfeld pinpoints the questionable decisions, missed connections, and sometimes extraordinary coincidences that make up a life. Indeed, she writes what we’re all thinking—if only we could express it with the wit of a master satirist, the storytelling gifts of an old-fashioned raconteur, and the vision of an American original.
About Curtis Sittenfeld
CURTIS SITTENFELD is the bestselling author of five novels: Prep, The Man of My Dreams, American Wife, Sisterland, and Eligible. Her first story collection, You Think It, I’ll Say It, will be published in 2018. Her books have been selected by The New York Times, Time, Entertainment Weekly, and People for their “Ten Best Books of the Year” lists, optioned for television and film, and translated into thirty languages. Her short stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The Washington Post, and Esquire, and her non-fiction has appeared in The New York Times, Time, Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, Slate, and on “This American Life.” A graduate of Stanford University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Curtis has interviewed Michelle Obama for Time; appeared as a guest on NPR’s “Fresh Air,” CBS’s “Early Show,” and PBS’s Newshour; and twice been a strangely easy “Jeopardy!” answer.
Weekly Recap #50: Week of 4/22 – 4/28
/35 Comments/by Suzanne
It’s time for another weekly recap post of all things happening on and off the blog. This week I’ll be linking to the Sunday Post, which is hosted by Caffeinated Book Reviewer and to Stacking the Shelves, which is hosted by Tynga’s Reviews.
Now that my tax deadlines have passed, life is getting back to a more normal pace, so I’m excited about that. Work was so quiet this past week because most of the CPAs were on vacation, so quiet in fact that I was able to squeeze in an extra book this week that I wasn’t planning to read. I listened to the audiobook of Geekerella, which was a super cute read, by the way.
This week my top reading priority if Song of Blood and Stone as I’m on the blog tour for this book and my turn comes up this Friday. I meant to read it this weekend but got so engrossed in I Stop Somewhere that I couldn’t put that one down long enough to jump over to my tour book.
Not too much else has been going on. I tried to get caught up on my blog visits this week. If I missed you though, yell at me so I can stop by. I have to confess that I had gotten so far behind as my deadline got closer that I ended up losing track of who I had visited and who I hadn’t. I suffer from C.R.S. (Can’t Remember Shit).
Outside of reading and blogging, about the only other exciting thing I can remember that happened was that The 100 finally came back. I feel like I’ve been waiting for that show to come back for ages so it was fantastic to finally have a new episode to watch. I watched that and then I binge watched season 1 of the Netflix remake of One Day at a Time. I liked that show a lot more than I was expecting to and Rita Moreno is absolutely hilarious in it.
I think that’s about it for me. I hope everyone has a wonderful week!
WHAT I POSTED LAST WEEK
- [22 Apr] Weekly Recap #49: Week of 4/15 – 4/21
- [23 Apr] Twenty-One Days (Daniel Pitt, #1) by Anne Perry ★★★★
- [24 Apr] Discussion: Girls, Girls, Girls – Why Are There So Many “Girls” in Mysteries & Thrillers?
- [25 Apr] Can’t Wait Wednesday – Spotlight on LETTING GO OF GRAVITY by Meg Leder
- [27 Apr] Girl Made of Stars by Ashley Herring Blake ★★★★★
WHAT I’M READING THIS WEEK
UPCOMING REVIEWS
STACKING THE SHELVES
TOTALLY RANDOM