"Reader, I Married Him!"
Jane Eyre & other February reads
February was a chef’s kiss reading month for me. My library holds list began to deliver and after reading some longer books and classics last month and beginning of this month it felt nice to read some pacy, contemporary stuff. I also took my annual winter surf trip to Puerto Rico which is always a good reading moment for me. So let’s get into it!
I started out the month with a little-known book you probably haven’t heard of…
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Reader, I
Married HimFinished Jane Eyre! C’est moi! I was swept up in the girly pipeline of Wuthering Heights trailer drop —> reading Wuthering Heights —> reading Jane Eyre. I loved the twists and turns and atmosphere of this book (and enjoyed it way more than WH, for what it’s worth). Jane is an iconic protagonist, brave and true! I was rooting for her. I am challenging myself to read more classics this year and it’s like strength training—hard when you haven’t done it in awhile, but then gets easier. And feels good and satisfying to do. Jane Eyre feels like a good reentry into classics for anyone else wanting to go on this journey! Giving the Brontës a break for a bit now…
Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson
Great recommendation by my bestie Caroline—I LOVED this! This was a family saga/mystery/story of a treasured family heirloom weaving together voices ranging from young woman in present times moving on after being left on her wedding day, a crime that rocked her family 18 years before, to her enslaved ancestors and their journey to freedom, and how they all connect. Highly recommend, it’s impossible to put down.
Just Watch Me by Lior Torenberg
This was catnip to me because it was comped to BIG SWISS, Melissa Broder and Otessa Moshfegh (3 of my all time faves!) so I immediately smashed that request button from the library. I love a tight timeline and this took place over the course of a week, when our desperate narrator starts livestreaming herself eating increasingly hot peppers to raise money for her sister’s medical care. So many insane twists and turns.
She Didn’t See it Coming by Shari Lapena
Classic thriller! Young wife & mother seems to have the perfect life…until she goes missing. Then it seems like maybe things weren’t so perfect at all! Etc. You get the idea. This was really good though. A nice contrast to my classics and heavier books last month. The ending…I really Didn’t See it Coming!
The Summer Book by Tove Jansson
This is a book from the early 70’s that follows a young girl who's mom has recently died, staying with her grandmother for the summer on an island in Finland. The grandmother is badass and pretty stoic nordic/island stock, and watching these two very different characters interact (there’s also a dad in the mix but he just works in a corner the entire time LOL) is so charming and heartfelt. I love books set on islands and this has alot of great landscape and atmospheric details. The stories are more like little vignettes that stand alone to paint a beautiful picture.
The Ten Year Affair by Erin Somers
If I were to recommend 2 books from this month as blanket recos that I think 90% of people I know will love, it would be Good Dirt and this book. TTYA follows a group of friends in upstate New York over the course of a decade. A married woman meets a married man at a parents’ group when their kids are babies, and they get very close, admitting to a deep attraction to each other that they can never act on. The main character Cora lives her life, navigating marriage and motherhood and friendship with Sam’s family, while also having a secret fantasy timeline in which she consummates their affair. A meditation on the road-not-taken.
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
OMG this was batshit crazy! This came out in 1995 and is categorized as sci-fi (which I normally don’t read). It follows a nameless woman trapped in an underground bunker with 39 other women with no memory of how they got there or their lives before. I can’t say anything else without spoiling. But this is freaky and devastating and beautiful, very Handmaid’s Tale vibes. The author and her family fled Europe during the Holocaust and she later became a psychoanalyst which lends interesting context to this book, also.
Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash
This is everywhere and I was seeing it lauded as the new great american novel. Eh??? There’s a subplot about a conspiracy in the town surrounding a corrupt billionaire which kept me turning the pages, but I found these characters to be not super compelling and the writing style to be too capital-C “Clever.” My BF read this and loved it though. Different strokes!
That’s all for Feb! I’ll see you (you, my 15 subscribers) later this month. I think I’m going to write a piece about surfing next. Happy reading!!! XOX
Want to read so many of these based on these reviews!! Great recs!
I LOVE THIS AND I ALSO LOVE THE HEEL OF THE BREAD. xxxxx